The Gemini Lantern
by Union-Jack2.0
Summary: X-over. A dying champion from another universe seeks out Andromeda bequeath a wonderous ring to one of her crew, so that another might take up the fight against the night, to take up the legacy of the Green Lantern...
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: Tribune and DC Comics own the characters and the original storylines, themes, location, species and other names etc. that I reference, the Green Lantern power rings, batteries, force lances and so on and on and on... To cut an extremely long story short, all I own is a vague and possibly weird desire to enjoy myself playing with all of the aforementioned. I'm out to have fun here, not make cash of any sort. Not even donations. Any characters, species, planet(s) and/or spacecraft that I design from scratch to use in this story are things that I do own...sort of. Bit hazy on the details, but then it's eleven p.m. at the time of typing this so I'm a bit hazy about a lot of things. I am also responsible for this plot, crazy though it is.

If Tribune or DC really want to use anything I create in this fic (_excuse me, I'm gonna need a couple of years to finish laughing at that idea! :DDD_) just contact me and we'll hash out the details. is where I can be reached for the foreseeable future (hey, I just don't have precognitive abilities like Trance, so no guarantees!). If this changes for whatever reason, I'll put the info up here along with the name, address and police mugshots of whoever is responsible.

Author: Union-Jack2.0

Rating: '**PG13**' No particular reasons at the moment, I'm just playing things safe.

Spoilers: _Andromeda:_ Harper 2.0 (vaguely, only once or twice, but this might change), The Devil Take The Hindmost (I'm going to be focussing more on Andromeda's relief efforts to Pythia, Rev and Dylan's woodland warfare activities won't be affected by my madness), Honey Offering, Starcrossed Lovers, It Makes A Lovely Light, Its Hour Come Round At Last, The Widening Gyre, Exit Strategies...actually, in short pretty much any episode after The Devil Take The Hindmost is pretty much fair game provided it meets two conditions; if I've watched it, and if I've got the thing on tape so's I can reference it. Admittedly, as the show takes yonks after its release in the U.S. before it turns up over here and I only have access to Terrestrial and Freeview channels, so that means I'm limited to just the first two seasons. And no, I'm not going to try to write about episodes I've only read the reviews of on or anywhere else. I prefer visiting that site for the news articles, wallpaper and music in any case.

_Green Lantern / DC Comics_ in general: vague references only, I'm not going to list by issues primarily but by the names of the collected editions 'cos they're what I've mostly got: _A New Dawn, Zero Hour_ (only vaguely—much as I love that one to pieces and I've read my copy cover to cover hundreds of times, I don't think I'll try transcribing it into prose format with, say, Trance Gemini instead of Kyle Rayner going up against Parallax—another time, later, maybe, but not now), _Baptism of Fire, Emerald Knights, New Journey, Old Path, Emerald Allies_ (maybe), _Circle of Fire_ (again, vaguely), _JLA: World War III, The Final Night_ (there's a couple of ... interesting ideas I've got in that direction that I'm carefully considering, don't know for sure yet what, if anything, will come of them), _Green Lantern #0_ and _#111_(sue me, I do have some individual issues around).

Season: One, in the aftermath of Harper 2.0. Forced Perspective, The Sum Of Its Parts and Fear And Loathing In The Milky Way aren't getting tampered with, FYI as to why, Trance just doesn't use a certain ring along with her in any of those incidents for reasons that will become apparent. Sometime after _GL New Journey, Old Path_—I dunno if Kyle and Jen did get married in the end, but for the purposes of this, they did. It's not really that important a detail anyhow.

Pairing: I doubt it at this stage, but then it's late at night and I have sufficient stress to give a full-grown elephant a fatal heart attack and enough adrenaline in my veins to power an electricity station which is not a good mix, so I doubt a lot of things, including my own continued existence and my ability to get the grades I need in the A-level exams I recently completed. Romance is possible, it's not planned at the moment but it is doable—hey, just 'cos I'm a bloke doesn't mean I don't appreciate a good romance story. I forget who wrote it, but the 'Drom fanfic _Unified_ put a giant grin on my face all the way through, _Even Androids Play The Blues _had me captivated and I actually shed tears during some bits of _Echoes Of Future Past_ and _Invictus_ (there's two by that name, both are great, here I'm talking about the one involving Telemachus Rhade and Beka—great stuff, well written and highly unorthodox—the sort of thing I like best and wish I could write, in other words). Call me sappy if you like, 'cos I won't give a monkey's about it. I have emotions and unlike a lot of testosterone- charged psychos my age, I am completely shameless in my feeling and expression of them. There were parts of _The_ _Longest Shortest Day In History_ where I came damn close to literally cheering Trance on as she went through hell and shadow and flame to save Harper's life. In _Conquered Destiny_, I wanted nothing more than to give Gaheris a 'Surrey-handshake' when he started deriving pleasure when he was "watching with a little pleasure as the little man squirmed and crabbed backwards in fear"—magnificent prose there, by the way. Hell, back in my school days, in my English class' production of Romeo _and Juliet_, I played Romeo in a couple of scenes. Seriously. As with "Of Larvae and Love", though, I. Don't. Write. Porn. There are lumps of rock that will still be more erotic than this fic even if I were to pair off the whole lot of the regular characters, an action with regards to which I doubt my abilities in any case.

Summary: Kyle Rayner, the last of the Green Lanterns, is dead. Before he died, he commanded his ring of power to take him to one worthy of bearing the legacy, worthy to become a champion and stand against the darkness of the endless night of all existence. He journeyed long and far, across the greatest depths of time and space to another universe, where The Long Night has come, and the Systems Commonwealth, the greatest civilisation in history, has fallen. Where now one ship, one crew, have vowed to drive back the Night and rekindle the light of civilisation. And it is upon the Starship Andromeda that hope lives again. Upon her decks there walks one who, unbeknownst to Andromeda and her crew, is the being the ring of power has chosen to drive back the forces of darkness...to once more shine forth the emerald light of the Green Lantern!

Sorry about the cheesiness...I think that's the lack of sleep having some _very_ strange effects on my mind...

As before with "Of Larvae and Love", I extend my apologies to anyone who's already done something like this or was thinking about it—that's just my 'curse' at work, and believe me there's absolutely zilch I or anyone else can do about it, I've tried—it's just a run of annoying bad luck.

Author's Note: As I've said in "Of Larvae and Love", I'm experimenting. This particular wacky idea entered my mind whilst revising for my Film Studies A-Level exams, and when multiple efforts to dislodge it failed, I wrote a brief summary in a large and bloated file I keep on my computer for such things out of sheer desperation. It worked, and now I've finished the exams and have a quarter of a year at my disposal, I thought I'd build on it a little in between body-boarding, swimming about and sunbathing at my local beach.

It's weird, and I rather like the direction it's taken so far, but I'd greatly appreciate feedback. If you can see something glaringly and obviously wrong with this, call me. If you see a way in which to correct the problem, I'll be forever indebted to you. And if you have ideas about directions to take, I'm VVVV interested. Hey, I'm not pig-headed and I never let my ego get in the way of a good thing. Just go easy with your flamethrowers and what have you, and I hope you enjoy reading this at least as much as I did writing it.

Usual notice of reassurance: the characters are not going to be written with British accents. See "Of Larvae and Love" for the reasons. As with "Of Larvae and Love", I have no idea how long this will be. To quote Wong-Kar- Wai's Chungking Express, "This flight could be quite long."

The Gemini Lantern  
  
CHAPTER ONE:  
  
THE PASSING OF THE LEGACY

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"_To know the darkness is to love the light,_

_to welcome dawn and fear the coming night._"

—The Book of Counted Sorrows

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In the inky depths of space, emerald light twinkled. Then again. It hastened across the vastness, almost as though it were...  
  
_Searching._

================================================================

The _Andromeda Ascendant_ hung in space, as repair bots swarmed across the damaged areas of her hull. To an unknowing viewer their activities would seem random, even pointless. In truth, they were fortifying temporary repairs hastily made to enable her flight within slipstream after heavy damage had been sustained.  
  
Seamus Harper cursed and Andromeda's hologram flinched in pain as a brief power surge passed through her generators.  
  
"Sorry Rom Doll," he called, as he gently thumped his forehead against the panel before him.  
  
"It's alright, Harper," she ground out through the last of the pain. "It's nothing permanent, don't worry."  
  
"Glad to hear it," he smiled at her. "What say you we take another shot at this, huh?"  
  
"Once more into the breach," she agreed. She then frowned.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"I'm not entirely certain. It could be a slipstream event, but something's... something's different about this anomaly. Whatever's coming through is far too small to be a ship."  
  
"An escape pod maybe?"  
  
The hologram shook her head. "No. It—it's like it's the size of a human..." Her eyes widened in shock as she paused. "That's impossible!" Klaxons sounded and warning lights flashed. "Intruder Alert!" Andromeda announced over her intercom system. "Condition Red! Intruder Alert!" 

================================================================

"Andromeda! Report!" Dylan shouted as he left his office at a run, force lance at the ready.  
  
"One intruder, a human male. He's in Medical. Dylan, this is going to sound insane, but I detected what appeared to be a slipstream portal just now, and this man is all that came through. He also seems to be able to pass through solid objects, as he went through my hull as though it wasn't even there."  
  
"Just great," he growled. "One of Jeger's buddies with a tesseract device. Come to finish the job, I suppose."  
  
"No," she corrected. "Dylan, I'm not detecting any sign of tesseracts. He is surrounded by some sort of energy field, which may account for how he passed through the hull and slipstreamed without a ship, but I can't get any solid readings on it...the readings I'm getting are heavily garbled, very much like when I try to scan Trance's physiology. Dylan, there's something else you should know. He's dying. He appears to have sustained many injuries, most of them life-threatening."  
  
"It's never easy," he grumbled, running onwards. 

================================================================

Kyle Rayner staggered as he regained solidity and his body submitted to the ship's artificial gravity. He approached the purple girl before him unsteadily, coughing up his own blood as he struggled to speak, causing him to drop his battery as he gagged on the life-giving fluid.  
  
Finally, he pulled the ring—his precious ring that had faithfully served him through many bitter battles and saved so very many lives—from his finger and held it out to her, scooping up the battery.  
  
"This ring," he gasped through the waves of pain that engulfed him, "take it. You are the one...you must take up the legacy...the lantern..." He thrust the ring and battery into her hands as he collapsed to the deck, retching blood from his injuries. He rolled onto his back, looking up at her as, with trembling hands, he removed his visor.  
  
And he _winked_ at her. He smiled widely and hopefully, as death claimed him and his ring flashed. 

================================================================

Beka, the first to arrive at Medical, was greeted by a horrific sight.  
  
Trance sat slumped and trembling against a wall, eyes wide with shock, unblinking. A large, emerald-green diamantine object lay beside her, and her fist was tightly clenched around something.  
  
Two feet away from her lay a man who, if he was lucky, was dead. A lake of shining crimson blood seeped across the floor from his body, slowly yet steadily growing wider and wider. He wore the remnants of a shredded and tattered skintight black and white suit of some sort, and wore dark green metal gauntlets and boots. The man was young, in his mid-twenties. A mop of unruly dark hair spilled over his handsome face. Beside his corpse, an emerald-green metallic visor lay in the blood, light glinting weakly from its surface, dulled as it was in a sheen of crimson.  
  
"Oh god Trance!" Beka cried out, rushing to her side. "Are you all right? What happened?" The purple girl turned to face her, still unblinking, still trembling barely breathing. "Trance!"  
  
"He-he j-just died," she stammered, half-sobbing. "H-he floated in—through the wall—gave me this," she patted the item beside her, "a-and th-this ring—and he just _died_, Beka. H-he's dead!"  
  
"He's dead!" she whimpered again, flinging her arms around Beka's neck and burying her face in her shoulder. "I could f-feel the pain he was in!"  
  
Beka returned the embrace gently, slowly rubbing her hand across her friend's back in comforting circular motions as she soothed her. "It's alright Trance. You're safe, you're going to be alright." 

================================================================

The ring lay on the dresser before her, where it had done so for the last two days.  
  
They'd buried the man in a disabled escape pod, the traditional spacers' funeral. Jettisoned, it had slowly floated off into space, turning slowly and quietly, floating in a deathly silence towards a nearby sun. Moments later, the pod had erupted into flames and then into a brilliant, sparkling explosion and was gone.  
  
Andromeda had related the entire incident in careful detail to Dylan and Beka, who had later encouraged her to keep the ring and the sculpture-like object. And yet...  
  
It disturbed her deeply. The ending of a life was never a good thing, and this young man had died horribly and in terrible agony—an agony she had shared as he died.  
  
She had to find a way to end this, this fear. She deeply disliked it, desperately sought peace within herself. And yet, despite her efforts, she could not find it.  
  
Finally, her courage mustered, she firmly grasped the ring.  
  
And placed it on her finger.  
  
A faint and slightly pleasant tingling sensation ran through her body, and she stared at the ring, which had begun to glow with an emerald light. Her tail twitched as her instincts screamed at her, trying to bring her attention to what they had noticed.  
  
It took her a full half-second to realise her hand was covered with a glove of white fabric. She looked up at her image in the mirror.  
  
A skin-tight green and black uniform with an emerald symbol on a white circular background adorned her slender frame, and her face was half hidden by a green mask. The clothing fitted her perfectly and exactly, covering even her tail in the comfortable fabric.  
  
Of her own clothes, she could not see nor feel any sign.  
  
Within the mirror's reflection, the ring glowed even more brightly, growing to a dazzling intensity. In a brilliant, blinding flash he was there, standing beside her and stretching his arms wide as though from cramp, waving away a brief yawn. It was impossible, but yet he was there.  
  
The man who had died two days ago regarded her with a friendly expression as Trance turned to face him. He was completely green, of varying shades admittedly, but emerald green nonetheless.  
  
"Hi. Kyle Rayner. I am—well, ah, was, really—Green Lantern. Now, you bear that title."  
  
"Y-you—you're dead!" Trance practically shrieked. He shrugged.  
  
"My body's dead, but ah...I found a way to put off actually dying in _full_, if you know what I mean. For a time, about a year or so—an Earth year, that is—I can continue to..._exist_...like this, in the ring. I felt that the next Lantern might need some advice every now and then to begin with—hell knows _I_ sure could've used some when I was starting out—so I found out how to stick around. I'm dead, and I can't retain a solid form for long—at the moment I'm appearing as a light image—but I'm still the same guy. Same memories, same experience, knowledge, attitudes, reactions—the lot."  
  
"What do you want with me?" she apprehensively asked.  
  
He sighed. "As I said earlier, I used to be Green Lantern. There've always been Green Lanterns in the universe in one way or another—or at least, in my universe. They—and I—were heroes, champions of good and, well...you get the idea. They fought evil, saved lives when accidents happened and natural disasters struck, and generally made what could be a very hostile and unforgiving universe into a far happier place.  
  
"The source of a Green Lantern's power lies in the ring. It's controlled by your thoughts, but you have to focus—hard—on what you want it to do most of the time. Simple things or things that are constantly in your mind are easier, things that aren't so familiar are tougher. A Green Lantern's ring enables the bearer to fly, survive in space and other hostile environments—god I sound like a cheesy robot from a low-budget TV show!—fire plasma energy blasts and create solid objects from that same plasma. Just as an example, you could sock someone with a boxing glove, carry a crate around from the other end of a room, or seal a breach in a starship's hull. They can only store a limited charge, though, so they need to be recharged from a battery—the battery for your ring's over there. This particular ring's power will last up to a week or so, but if it gets used a lot it'll run out faster.  
  
"As to me and why I'm here, well, to cut a long story short, I was dying. I knew nothing could save my life, even my ring couldn't have saved me. It can accelerate the healing of wounds a little, but it has limits. So, I told it to take me to somewhere it was needed and to someone worthy enough to wield it—to be the new Green Lantern.  
  
"It was...an incredible trip. Even though I was dying, I literally had my breath stolen away by some of the things I saw and felt in my mind. The ring took me to where and when it was most needed, only it was here—in a universe very different to my own and a long way into the future. To this amazing ship, to Andromeda.  
  
"You see, you have been chosen by the ring," the spectre of the dead Kyle Rayner announced. Trance's lips quirked into a grin, ready to gently refute this claim. "You are to be the new Green Lantern. And, since my death, I have come to agree with its reasoning, having seen what I have seen of you."  
  
"But, I—" Trance protested.  
  
"I know all about what you're already doing, Trance," Kyle gently interrupted. "But you can do this. You have the strength, you have the creativity and a love for all life, and—" Kyle leaned a little closer, and, despite herself, Trance did so as well, as though they were sharing a grave secret. "You have a good heart. I believe that you will not be corrupted by the ring's power, not even tempted just a little."  
  
He leaned back and sighed. "My predecessor was a human named Hal Jordan, who fought in a time when there were hundreds of Green Lanterns in the universe. Out of all those hundreds of champions, he became the greatest of them all.  
  
"And then he fell. When his home city and all he loved were destroyed, he tried to do what he should not; break this, this natural order of things, and bring them back to life. He went insane, little by little, until he destroyed the Green Lantern Corps, absorbed the power of all the rings and batteries, and killed the Guardians of the Universe. He came into possession of ultimate levels of power, and he chose to abuse it. When I had only just gotten my ring, Earth's greatest heroes and me stopped him.  
  
"A couple of years back, I had a similar opportunity, a similar level of power, and I avoided abusing it—instead, I gave life to new Guardians who would better guard such power. But I sure was _tempted_.  
  
"You, on the other hand," he smiled confidently, "will never be tempted to abuse such power. You can do this Trance. The ring showed me a lot of this time and place since my death, and it needs a Green Lantern much more than Earth does in my time—we already had hundreds of champions. The Known Worlds, on the other hand...Captain Hunt may be a living legend, but he is not someone who has experienced this time in full—you have. You can prove to the people of these galaxies the _good_ that is inside not only someone who has nothing in common with them, but _themselves_. You can show them just what they are only waiting to become.  
  
"'Sides," he smirked, "you won't be doing this alone. You'll have your friends here, and me—I've delayed my death! I'll be around to help you when you need any, you'll always be able to find me just by using the ring and asking me to show up. Advice, tips, ideas, stories about old times—if you're willing to put up with me, I'm more than ready to talk.  
  
"And don't sell yourself short," he warned her, "You were _chosen_. I was just the first guy that Ganthet—the last of the Guardians—managed to find. You want to know who I was when I got this ring?" Trance nodded, her smile matching his. "An out-of-work artist, who'd been knocking back beers in a smoky bar for a bit too long, so I stumbled out into this alleyway, right, and I'm barfing up what feels like everything I _ever_ ate when suddenly one of the most powerful beings who ever lived drops out of the sky and shoves the most powerful weapon in the entire universe into my hands! And honestly, I do think that there are far better—and far worse—people than me he could have gotten. So, I think you'll find you'll do even better than me. And even Hal's old buddies admitted I was in his league, at least in the end before I... well, you guys buried me, you should know."  
  
Trance sank to the floor, overwhelmed with all this knowledge. Kyle smiled sympathetically as he 'sat' beside her, cross-legged.  
  
"I know how you feel. It was a lot for me at first too. Almost too much. But that's okay, Trance. It happened, according to some friends I made later on who'd been in the hero trade for a while, to all of those who came before me, too. But you can do this. And I believe in you, Trance. You have what it takes. You just need a little time, a little practice. But in the end, the decisions're all down to you."  
  
She looked at the ring on her finger a moment more, calmly appraising, nearly detached; then reached out with her mind, and _pushed_.  
  
She rose from the deck, suspended in a shimmering aura of green.  
  
She turned and saw the battery where she had left it next to her bedside table. She started to float across the room to it, but Kyle held up a hand. "Trance. Don't. It's easy. Just... _think_ about the battery. Focus on it, imagine _it_ coming to _you_, not the other way around."  
  
She nodded, gulped nervously. Another mental _flex_ and the battery lifted, floating toward her. Trance held out her hand and touched the ring to its smooth surface. She smiled as both ring and battery glowed as the ring charged, and felt hope. She knew she could do this. She had to. She _needed_ to. 

================================================================

As she trained, Kyle would tell her about the legacy she was now a part of. He spoke of the world Oa, of the traitor Sinestro, the original and central power battery, of the Green Lantern Corps itself. How its members had come from hundreds of different worlds through the ages. It all came down to this, right here and right now: a single ring and power battery, the legacy humbling in its immensity.  
  
And the legacy now came down to her as well.  
  
He told her other things: of the other champions he had known, of their backgrounds and amazing powers and the battles they had fought together, how they had saved Earth, even the universe. Of how he had been thrown backwards through time and had actually met the Corps and fought alongside them, if only for a short while. He gave her tips based on his own experiences when first using the ring, and warned her of the ways in which the ring's power could be countered, ways he had often discovered at his own expense. 

===============================================================

Little by little, Trance practiced using the ring—her ring, as Kyle always insisted it was—in secret, engaging privacy mode wherever she was. Flight was the easiest trick, just as Kyle had assured her—although as she had never imagined herself flying as a child like he admitted to have done, so that couldn't have been the reason for it.  
  
At first she simply hovered and levitated herself about in her own quarters, but with a little encouragement she grew bolder, until she was able to complete complex and intricate manoeuvres among her plants in Hydroponics at breath-taking speeds.  
  
She had initially dispensed with a costume, especially during her Hydroponics flights where anyone might walk in unannounced, but at Kyle's encouragement she experimented with a range of uniforms in the privacy of her own quarters. She never really settled on any single design though, and at last simply opted to let her imagination run wild each time, each uniform reflecting her mood at the time of its generation or the atmosphere of her situation.  
  
Moving objects like boxes and tools was easy enough, and she grew bolder, manipulating up to a dozen objects simultaneously and manoeuvring them in a variety of routes and circuits. After a couple of weeks of this, Kyle suggested that since she would at some stage need to rely on her abilities to save lives, she should try moving living beings. Like plants for starters.  
  
Trance was, initially, extremely apprehensive about this; she loved her plants as much as she loved Andromeda and the rest of Andromeda's crew after all and was worried to say the least about their safety. But after a little patient, gentle cajoling and persuasion on Kyle's part, especially after he pointed out that she might need to be able to rescue her plants whilst Andromeda was under attack or boarded, she eventually tried this technique as well. As with the other tricks of the trade, she learnt quickly. Not too quickly, but quickly nonetheless.  
  
Constructs she got the hang of with very little training, but it took lots of practice to get details just right. Eventually, she was creating plasma constructs of plants and androids so detailed in shape, texture and movement that had Kyle not been training her himself he would have believed without question that he was looking at the real things.  
  
Then the training went to the next step. There were some things, like barriers and protecting herself and others from attack, that Trance could not fully test on her own. For these, she would need the help of the rest of the crew. 

================================================================

Trance had never been so nervous about making a trip to Command before. Still, she squared her shoulders, held her chin up proudly and looked about her with a confident, optimistic gleam in her eye. She knew that all of the others were there, for one of the informal meetings that were only sometimes arranged, and sometimes spontaneously happened.  
  
Their conversations stopped dead as she marched into Command, and she gulped nervously.  
  
They stared at her, with a new inner strength in her stride and stance, a glowing emerald ring on her left index finger, and a form-fitting green and black one-piece costume covering her body. A slender green mask covered much of her upper face.  
  
"Trance..." Dylan hesitantly began, "wh-what's happened?"  
  
"Guys," she hastened, not wanting for everyone else to begin a volley of questions, something she knew she could not bear, "you remember that man who flew right through Rommie's hull only to...die...in Medical? It's kind of a long story, and I'm a bit nervous about this, so just hold off with your questions a little bit, okay, and this is tricky enough as it is." They slowly settled, interested.  
  
"He gave me this ring and a battery before he died—the battery's back in my quarters. When I put the ring on two days later... he came to me. His, his soul as you would call it, has made a temporary haven for itself in the ring. Eventually, Kyle—Kyle Rayner, that's his name—will die, but he wanted to be able to stick around for a little while. To train his successor." This earned her a serious look from Beka, and Trance's confidence leapt a little.  
  
"When he realised he was dying from his injuries and that there was nothing anyone could do, he told the ring to find someone—someone it judged as worthy to bear its power and take him to them so he could pass on the legacy as it had been passed on to him—the legacy of the Green Lanterns. Champions of the whole universe itself, the last of whom died thousands of years ago.  
  
"The ring guided him to another timestream, to Andromeda. To the one it had chosen. To me."  
  
She drifted down to 'stand' several inches above the main deck of Command and 'walked' forward by manipulating the green aura around her. Harper pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly. Tyr folded his arms, features unreadable. No doubt he was seriously re-evaluating the potential threat—or power as an ally—Trance now posed to him. _Let him think as he pleases,_ she thought to herself. _It's just his way and there's not much I can really do about it.  
_  
"So...that thing's for _real_?" Beka arched an eyebrow.  
  
Trance smiled as she raised her left hand. "Kyle? A little help here?" she whispered. Tyr frowned and Rommie looked a little puzzled, as they were the only ones who heard. Or at least, so they thought.  
  
The ring glowed brighter, and with his customary flash of light, he was there. The young man nodded his thanks to her, and 'walked' towards Dylan, extending his right hand.  
  
"Kyle Rayner," he offered by way of introduction. "I used to be _the_ Green Lantern. Now, I'm, ah, dead. I have to tell you, I've been getting a _bit_ nervous and excited at the same time about this, so pardon me if I'm kinda on edge a little—I haven't had a coffee in a _real_ long time either. Anyhow," he continued as Dylan grasped his hand warily, "it's a great pleasure to meet you face-to-face at last. Trance has told me all about you, shown me some recordings of you, but I gotta say, this is...quite something for me. I wish you and Andromeda had been around in my Justice League days."  
  
Dylan cautiously shook the emerald spectre's hand. It felt cool, smooth like water and completely unblemished. And yet...something about the feel of his form fairly crackled with life. "So...you used to be a...what, some kind of superhero? They used to be quite a popular concept in entertainment when I was a kid, but that was three hundred and forty years ago on Tarn-Vedra so..."  
  
Kyle grinned as he stepped back and released the captain, taking his meaning. Closing his emerald eyelids, he focused for a second. When he opened them once more, he had altered his appearance to how he had looked in his uniform—with the exception of his ring and visor. "Yeah, last bearer of the Green Lantern Corps' legacy—one ring, one battery, one champion fighting evil alone—that's how things were for me at the start. My girlfriend at the time...she was murdered 'cause of the ring, by this guy working for a U.S. government agency that wanted it, so it kinda turned into something of a crusade for a while. Came to a few realisations about myself...the ring...how I fitted into the universe, both as Kyle and as Green Lantern...things got better.  
  
"Anyway," he suddenly grinned and rubbed his hands together, "what do you want to know? Anyone?"  
  
"Well...will this ring be harmful to any of us?" Dylan asked. "Any radiation or emissions?"  
  
"None whatsoever," Kyle admitted. "That was something I wondered about at first myself, after I found out that there was more to the ring than it providing me with an instant suit after I put it on. But, no, there's nothing like that to worry about."  
  
"Will the ring or its presence pose a threat to us?" Andromeda bluntly asked from a screen.  
  
"Rommie!" Trance hissed, a little embarrassed.  
  
"Nah, s'alright. I understand. No, there's no chance of that happening. Since my...passing, I've had a look around these galaxies you call the Known Worlds, and there's no one I recognise and no way for anyone to follow me—at least, not without another ring, a lot of skill and willpower and a ton of luck, and there's only one person I know with all those. And quite frankly, if Jenny shows up...well, I've only got a limited amount of time. If you do meet her, could you pass on a message for me? I'll get it prepared at the first opportunity."  
  
"Jenny...?" Harper asked, eyebrows skyrocketing. Kyle grinned lopsidedly at him.  
  
"Trance warned me about you; for your information Jenny and I were married. There was this time travel incident a few years after I became Green Lantern...long and short of it was I found a way to generate another ring in the past, and she kind of took up the mantle after she lost her powers. Her natural abilities were pretty close to what a power ring can do anyway, so it wasn't too big a change for her. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Justice League asked her to join them; they always need a 'ringbearer' around what with one thing and another."  
  
"So," Tyr grunted, "for what purpose are you two telling us all this? You've kept it a secret so far; why reveal it now?"  
  
"Tyr," Rev admonished, "there's no need to be so..."  
  
"Harsh?" the Nietzschean turned to face him. "Quite frankly, Reverend, I see no good reason in wasting time getting to the point."  
  
"It's okay Rev," Trance smiled at him as she removed her mask. "Tyr's right. There is a reason for this.  
  
"So far I've been training with only Kyle to help—and I've gotten pretty good at stuff like flight and moving things around, but there are some things that can be done with the ring that I really need someone else around—someone, well..." She trailed off, looking apologetically at Kyle then staring at the deck, tears welling a little in her eyes.  
  
The dead young man turned solid just long enough to take her hand and give it a gentle squeeze in reassurance. "Someone who's physical all the time," he finished. "I can go solid, but not for long. I learned most of the combat techniques by being in the wrong places at exactly the wrong times and damn near getting killed in the process."  
  
"I...I was wondering if you could all help me with learning that stuff...just a bit more safely," Trance added, blinking back the tears and smiling a little as she looked up. "Shields and things mostly."  
  
"Of course we will," Dylan nodded, looking over to Beka and Rommie in turn, who each gave their unspoken agreement. "One thing I'd like to know Trance, how far are you going to go with this? I mean, will you try to re-establish this 'Corps' or anything like that?"  
  
Trance shrugged. "I'm not sure right now."  
  
"It should be theoretically possible to make another ring and battery," Kyle admitted. "The old Green Lanterns used to make new rings from their own whenever they needed help, and I once generated a new battery from the one I brought with me —Jen needed one of her own for recharging when I had to journey into deep space—there was this whole thing with a prophecy about the end of the world, and I had to go investigate, Earth needed a Green Lantern while I was gone, so...still, it would take a lot of work to do. And if we're talking about more Lanterns, well, you've gotta be very careful. The power of the rings can be incredibly seductive, which is why in the old days a dying Green Lantern would let the ring guide them to someone it judged as 'worthy', like I did with Trance. You can't hand them around like popcorn."  
  
"I should hope not," Dylan and the dead man regarded each other thoughtfully.  
  
"Well," Beka grinned, rising from the slipstream chair. "Seems like you've got some competition as a 'champion', Dylan," she teased.  
  
He smiled at this. "So it would seem. Anyway, welcome to the Andromeda Mr. Rayner, Green Lantern," he nodded at Trance. 

===============================================================

===============================================================


	2. First Rescue

CHAPTER TWO:  
  
FIRST RESCUE

================================================================

"_The wearer of the mask partakes of the power of_

_the divinity or spirit which the mask symbolises..._"

—Encyclopaedia of Magic and Superstition

================================================================

The deck ceased its shuddering as Andromeda emerged from slipstream near Pythia. The atmosphere on Command was tense to say the least.  
  
"Multiple distress signals, both from the colony and from an orbital habitat," Rommie reported.  
  
Tyr frowned. "No one said anything about an orbital habitat."  
  
"Things are much worse than expected. Blowback from the comet strike has caused severe structural damage to the orbital. They're trying to evacuate, but they don't have enough ships."  
  
"How many Than are we talking about?" Beka asked from the slipstream chair.  
  
"The orbital housed several hundred thousand Than. We can help, but it will take several days to ferry them all to safety."  
  
"Dylan and the Magog will be on their own for longer than they expected," Tyr pointed out, as ever playing 'devil's advocate'.  
  
Rommie looked directly at Beka. "If we leave, the Than in that orbital will die."  
  
"Are you telling me I should just abandon Dylan and Rev?" she asked.  
  
"I'm not telling you to do anything," Rommie explained. "I'm giving the Captain options."  
  
"Beka," Trance called over the intercom.  
  
"What news?"  
  
"I've been monitoring things down here, and I think I can help out—using the ring. I can travel faster than Andromeda, run damage limitation when I get to the orbital, buy time for you guys when you arrive. Seal off breaches, evacuate critical areas, that sort of thing—I won't really know everything until I get there, but I can make a difference. I can do this."  
  
Beka nodded. "Andromeda," she called, "shift course for the orbital, best speed. Dylan'll just have to take care of himself. Trance, are you absolutely sure about this?"  
  
"I can do better than that—I'm certain," the purple pixie confidently announced. "I can do this Beka. Trust me."  
  
The blonde captain grinned. "Okay, you go do your thing, but I want you to stay in contact with us the whole time. And be prepared to come back aboard when we start getting flooded with casualties."

================================================================

Trance smiled broadly to herself as she ran into her quarters and retrieved the power ring from its hiding place. This was _it_. Finally she was going to use these abilities for real.  
  
She slid the shining piece of green metal onto her finger, feeling more than a little nervous. If she made a mistake, there would be no taking it back, not this time.  
  
And yet...there was something she found strangely attractive about all this. For a long time, she had done good over the years and caused good things to happen. The whole time, despite all her work, she had never been recognised for those accomplishments. Granted, she had worked better in anonymity, but still...a little gratitude would have been nice.  
  
She glanced down at herself as her uniform replaced her dress. This was actually one of the few things that the ring did that Kyle had been unable to explain, as he didn't rightly know how the trick worked himself. This time, she wore a skintight suit that covered her from neck to toe in the warm and comfortable fabric. No frills, nothing to get snagged or catch on things. In other words, practical for the task at hand.  
  
She gently pushed upwards with her mind, and she floated from the deck. Grinning to herself, she focussed a little more, and she was off, rocketing through Andromeda's corridors. A party of Tyr's mercenaries appeared up ahead, and she smiled.  
  
"Look out!" she called. "The Green Lantern's coming through!"  
  
They ducked, and one of them, a Makra, hurled a volley of choice insults after her as she flew on. She giggled briefly; that _had_ been fun, even though she planned to find them later and apologise for the scare.  
  
"Rommie?" she called out as she slowed to hover outside the hangar bay. "Open the doors please? I just need to get a headset from the _Maru_, and then I'll need you to open the hangar doors for me."  
  
Andromeda's response was to open the doors, and Trance promptly dived inside, heading for the _Maru_.  
  
A minute later and she'd sealed the _Maru_'s airlock behind her as she adjusted the headset's frequencies. "Beka? Tyr? Are you guys reading me?"  
  
"Gotcha kiddo." Beka's response hissed with static, which cleared up as she compensated.  
  
"Okay...I'm ready."  
  
"Now you watch yourself out there Trance," Beka warned. "If you think your ring's running out of power, let us know and head back as fast as you can."  
  
"I will," Trance assured her. "Don't worry, I won't be careful—I'll be paranoid."  
  
Beka's laughter echoed tinnily over the com link. "You do that. And the best of luck to you. Opening hangar doors."  
  
Trance licked her lips a little nervously, focussing her mind as she heard the hiss of the air being drawn from the hangar, the fading rumble of the doors as they ground open and sound was swallowed by vacuum.  
  
She heard a brief hiss of air as the green plasma sealed around her and began to photosynthesise oxygen, and then there was only the dead silence of space. It was a silence as big as..._everything_.  
  
She flew, up and out of the hangar. 'Hovering' beside Andromeda, matching her speed, Trance oriented herself, found the orbital and took off.  
  
She focussed everything she had on her speed, and as she accelerated past Andromeda she was little more than a green and purple blur. Kyle had once told her it was possible to travel almost at the speed of light with a power ring, and certainly he'd had little trouble navigating the slipstream when he'd arrived in this universe, but she knew it would be a long while before she had the skill to do something like that.  
  
Cool green plasma flowed over her skin like as smooth and clear as water, maintaining her temperature, siphoning off sweat, monitoring muscle tone, repelling micrometeorites. This was in its own right an exhilarating experience for her; flying faster than any ship ever had before, with no suit or craft, nothing except for the power ring and her own willpower keeping her alive. It was a disturbing notion, and an exciting one as well.  
  
Within minutes, she reached the orbital. It was a large, disk-shaped object with a spire running through its centre. The spire had snapped lower down, and the station listed drunkenly, slowly spinning toward Pythia's surface below. She closed in, as a section of hull plating erupted from within, spilling various objects and terrified Than out into space.  
  
"Okay Trance, you can do this," she muttered to herself. "You can do this. It's all about the focus."  
  
She thought green thoughts. And her thoughts became _things_.  
  
A shimmering barrier sealed off the breach, and green globes snapped into existence around the flailing Than, sealing them into safety and immersing them with oxygen. Trance grinned weakly to herself, as she fought to maintain her focus. Just as Kyle had said, splitting focus was extremely difficult...it felt as though she were tearing her mind apart.  
  
In an instant, an idea came to her. Swiftly, she manoeuvred the globes together, merging and melding them, their forms blurring as her imagination went to work...  
  
There. That was _much_ easier with only three things to really focus on. She beamed proudly at the new creation: a crudely-shaped ship now surrounded the Than, a craft that she sent speeding on its way to Andromeda. "Guys," she called into the headset, "I've got some evacuees headed your way."

================================================================

Beka chuckled to herself as she saw the glowing green shape approach them. "We read you...Green Lantern. Standing by with Hangar Five." With that, she ended the communication and stared at the vid-feeds that Andromeda displayed on her main viewscreen.  
  
Trance had moved off as a repair craft closed in and welded a crude, air- tight patch over the breach, and the transport ship carefully entered the gaping maw of the hangar. As soon as it entered, she nodded at Rommie. The android briefly closed her eyes as she communed with herself, and the hangar sealed once more, beginning to repressurise. As its passengers disembarked, the ship dissipated in a brief sparkling shower of light.  
  
Beka shook her head as she watched the unfolding drama ahead. "Go get 'em, Trance," she murmured.

================================================================

Trance winced as the hull plating before her exploded outwards, shrapnel clattering from her shield. She braced herself, expecting to have to deal with a stream of Than, but all that spewed from the cavernous fissure was machinery and assorted debris. She sealed the breach, shaking her head as she did so. Partially in an attempt to clear it from the migraine that was setting in—something Kyle had warned she would probably experience early on—but partially because she felt that there was more she should be able to do.  
  
"_Come on!_" she thought to herself. "_Think BIG! Wait...hang on, that's IT!_"  
  
She twisted into a somersault, flying away from the orbital as fast as she could.

================================================================

"What is she doing?" Tyr pondered as Andromeda closed in on the orbital. "I would not have thought her likely to turn tail and run from her first challenge."  
  
"Why Tyr, I never knew you cared," Beka teased.  
  
"If that hologram was to be believed, the most powerful single weapon in all the universe rests upon her finger right now, and that is a situation I would prefer to monitor very closely indeed," he explained.  
  
"As I recall, he also said that the ring would now only work for Trance," Rommie commented, twitching an eyebrow.  
  
He shook his dreadlocked head as he turned to face them. "Ship, are you trying to imply something, or is faulty programming causing you to waste our time with idle conversation?" he shot back. "Do not insult my intelligence. And for your information, I happen to think that of everyone aboard these decks Trance is perhaps the best-suited for the job."  
  
"What? Aren't _you_ up to it?" Beka grinned at him. He snorted in disbelief.  
  
"Such a device would lead to complacency on its wielder's behalf. And whilst Trance will most likely be able to avoid such problems, I prefer not to risk my life, my genes and my lineage in so cavalier a manner." He turned back to his station. "I have no need to carry such a device, although I admit that I prefer the bearer of that ring to be on my side than not."

================================================================

Trance stared at the orbital nervously, preparing herself. To say that this would be difficult would be an understatement. She smiled as a memory came to her. "_Nothing worth doing is easy,_" had been Dylan's words when he'd recruited them. Looking at the orbital, she knew that those words were highly appropriate for this situation.  
  
"Hee haw," she muttered, as she focussed. She flexed.  
  
And everything went green.

================================================================

Beka grinned hugely as they entered close range with the orbital and evacuation shuttles began landing in the hangars.  
  
Ten minutes ago, the impossible had happened. Ten minutes ago, the orbital had ceased its slow plummet, its orbit had stabilised and hull reinforced.  
  
But then, she mused, many would have said that it was impossible for a sentient warship and her captain to survive for three hundred years caught in the gravity well of a black hole. Many would have said it was impossible for a High Guard warship to fall in love, or be driven insane by that love. So in comparison, an emerald plasma structure materialising from a little green ring and stabilising an entire orbital habitat was just yet another 'impossible' thing that had actually happened.  
  
Already, transport ships were landing by the dozen in the hangars, hastily unloading their passengers before leaving as swiftly as they had arrived to recover more Than from the dying structure—for despite Trance's best efforts, the habitat was surely doomed—and another wave of transports would arrive to do exactly the same thing.  
  
"Rommie, get our transport pods over there. I want us to be done with that thing as fast as we can."  
  
"So hasty?" Tyr turned to her. "I thought you wanted to do a good job for our ..._beloved_ Captain?"  
  
"Your personal feelings for Dylan aside, Tyr," Beka paused and snorted in amusement at his mildly revolted expression, "the faster we get the orbital out of the way, the faster we can get working on Pythia itself. These guys are just the start of things. There's millions of Than who need us on that rock, and our job's to help 'em. Besides, Trance can only hold that crate together for so long—even if she doesn't lose her focus that ring's only got so much juice. If it runs out whilst she's in zero-g... you get the idea."  
  
The former mercenary shrugged and turned back to his station. Beka looked up at one corner of the main viewscreen, and grinned in a mixture of amazement and disbelief at the sight of the encased orbital as a rush of optimism flowed through her like adrenaline.  
  
They were going to do just fine on this op.

================================================================

Dylan sighed as he entered his quarters and flopped into his armchair contentedly. A shower, some sleep and a square meal and...he probably still wouldn't be absolutely brilliant, but the improvement would be enough. Maybe he'd take Beka up on that talk...  
  
He sighed as he allowed himself to sink a little deeper into the chair's welcoming depths. "Andromeda?"  
  
Her hologram materialised before him, and he smiled wearily. "How were things here whilst I was gone?"  
  
She inclined her head to one side briefly. "The relief operation was a complete success. Beka and I worked reasonably well together co-ordinating our end of the operation. She's good, there's no denying that. We had a few..._complicated_ situations, but nothing that couldn't be resolved. And we are now on excellent terms with the Pythian government."  
  
He nodded as he leaned back in the chair, wincing slightly as the supple leather gently creaked. "And...I understand that Trance outdid herself?"  
  
She grinned at this. "She was impressive. If it weren't for that ring of hers, things would have gone differently on that orbital...a little worse, to say the least. But she pulled through." She was gratified to see Dylan smiling at the news. She knew the mission to Serendipity had gone badly somehow, but felt it best to wait rather than push for information. "Working that ring seems to have exhausted her, she's been asleep nearly two days now, but she succeeded, and she saved a lot of lives that would've been lost if it weren't for her and the ring. The media's become rather excitable about this new 'champion' who seems to have allied herself with you only just now. Beka and I eventually gave up trying to talk to them. I must say, she is highly adept at delegation; she had Tyr answer their questions."  
  
"Oh, no," he groaned, leaning back a little further.  
  
She smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry. I made certain he didn't take a gauss rifle to the press conference. In all seriousness, they seem to be satisfied with the information he gave them—information that Beka, Trance and I approved beforehand. I believe that we may have an advantage here, Dylan."  
  
He nodded in understanding. "I take it that 'Green Lantern' has been... _favourably_ received then?"  
  
"She certainly has. The Pythians sent a message of thanks to us all less than an hour before your return, and they attached a note. It seems they're thinking of building a statue of her."  
  
He chuckled dryly. "That does sound like good news. But I can do you one better, Rommie."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"At least Trance was chosen by the ring. I mean, can you imagine what it would do to Harper's ego if he'd been selected?"

================================================================

================================================================

Author's Note: yeah, not the best pair of chapter endings but what am I, a miracle worker? Thanks for your faith in me, but I'm not quite that good. Anyway, please let me know what you think. I'm already working on the next couple of chapters, so one way or another, this is getting a follow up on Friday 30th (In England, at any rate—I dunno how the time zones mesh, I've never left the country before. _Ever._) at the very latest, but if I can get feedback, I can make some adjustments in the next pieces. Also, let me know if there's a situation of whatever sort you reckon would be interesting to use and I'll have a goosy to find out what I can do my end. If you have questions about future occurrences, could you PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE include your personal opinions, ideas, anything that comes to mind regarding the matter—I do not stand on many formalities, I AM willing to sound out stuff like this! Anyway, much appreciating your readership,  
  
Union-Jack2.0


	3. Cometh The Hour

CHAPTER THREE:  
  
COMETH THE HOUR  
  
"_Blow winds and crack your cheeks.  
  
Rage, blow! You cataracts and hurricanes,  
  
spout 'til you have drenched our steeples,  
  
drowned the cocks. You sulph'rous and  
  
thought-executing fires, vaunt couriers  
  
of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, **singe my  
  
white head!**_"  
  
—"King Lear", Act Three, Scene Two  
  
_by_ William Shakespeare  
  
=============================================================

A streak of emerald light slashed the eternal obsidian night of space, tearing its way toward a vast structure. Twenty worlds joined together, a star at their centre.  
  
If an observer were to study the light intently enough, they would have seen two dark silhouetted figures within it. A particularly keen-eyed observer would have noted too their grim and determined expressions.  
  
As they entered the labyrinthine tunnels of the gargantuan structure, Trance turned to her companion. "Are you sure we're heading in the right direction?"  
  
Rommie shrugged slightly as they penetrated the atmosphere of one of the planets and dove into a canyon. "As certain as I can be. They're approximately four kilometres almost straight down."  
  
Trance grinned broadly. "Y'know, if we'd come in on the _Maru_, we'd have to proceed on foot through the tunnels—but with this," she nodded at her ring, "who needs tunnels?"  
  
Rommie twitched an eyebrow appreciatively as Trance briefly closed her eyes and a beam of plasma emerged from the ring, burning through the rock. They soared through the new tunnel, passing the occasional pack of Magog. As fast as the broods of Magog pursued them, she knew that nothing, not even herself—her _ship_-self—could match Trance's imagination whilst the enigmatic alien bore the power ring.  
  
"Twenty worlds joined into a single structure manipulated by artificial gravity and powered by a miniature sun. I guess it's true what they say:" Trance shot a sidelong glance at her. "'No matter how powerful you are, there's always someone bigger and stronger than you.' I just never thought it applied to me."  
  
Trance smiled easily as they drew closer. "You scared?"  
  
"Terrified," she admitted. "No offence intended, but..."  
  
"Hey, it's okay. Me too. Just 'cause I've got the most powerful weapon in all the universe on my finger doesn't mean we can't fail. There's lots of things that could go wrong, Rommie," she sighed.  
  
Rommie flinched. "I can't raise my...self—the ship. There's too much interference."  
  
"Looks like we're on our own," Trance agreed. "How long until Beka launches the Nova bomb?"  
  
"Two hours, forty-one minutes."  
  
"Here's hoping it's enough." Things had turned around so very fast indeed since she'd regained consciousness.  
  
=============================================================  
  
_"Okay." Trance shivered involuntarily. "Okay, Trance, you can do this," she muttered to herself. "You know you can. There is a perfect possible future where everything will turn out just fine. And the odds of creating that future are only...one million, six hundred and seventy-one thousand to one less five thousand, two hundred and twenty-three, more or less."  
  
Andromeda activated her hologram once more. "Trance, I'm bringing two androids to help you. We need to move Dylan and Beka now."  
  
"You don't understand." Trance shivered again. "This is very, very bad."  
  
"I can see that," the hologram replied, a little reproachful.  
  
"No. No, you can't. That's the problem." Trance began to pace, and Rommie grew worried for her. "There may be a perfect possible future, but I can't see that right now, and nothing is going to make that better."  
  
"Trance, I've been studying you for almost a year now. I know you have secrets, ways of seeing probabilities, maybe even influencing outcomes. Right now, Dylan and Beka need medical attention immediately. Even if you can't see any possible way to save them, we have to try."  
  
Pounding came from outside of Command.  
  
"Magog!" Trance cried.  
  
"It's too late." Rommie felt cheated. Once again, she was about to be robbed of her crew, her friends, her family. Only this time it was all her fault!  
  
Trance closed her eyes, focussing her mind as carefully and finely as she could. When she had responded to Andromeda's call of intruders earlier, she had been working in Medical whilst her ring had been in her quarters, and she hadn't thought to retrieve it first. And after Andromeda had press- ganged her into slipstreaming, she had been unable to focus properly to do this, despite her efforts.  
  
Now, she had to succeed. She knew her friends would perish if she did not.  
  
"Andromeda," she mumbled, "if you have any external defences remaining, you might want to activate them ...NOW."  
  
Onwards it came, a streak of purest green light. Through walls, deck plates, doors and even Magog it phased, doing no harm or damage as it travelled.  
  
Andromeda's hologram nodded approvingly. "You want a distraction. I think I know just the thing," she grinned, and winked at her.  
  
She concentrated for a moment and elsewhere in the ship, the Tweedles activated.  
  
"There," she smiled in satisfaction, "that should get their attention."  
  
"And this should make things a lot easier," Trance whispered as she opened her eyes, a smile dancing upon her lips.  
  
The glowing green ring spiralled through the air—  
  
—and landed squarely on her finger.  
  
She looked up at where the main viewscreen showed the Tweedles attacking the Magog ships on Andromeda's hull. Explosions lit up the star-filled sky as debris flew in all directions, the triumphant Tweedles continuing their charge.  
  
"I forgot you had those," Trance nodded admiringly.  
  
"We haven't exactly had a burning need for planetary-warfare-bots," Andromeda pointed out as the doors opened and two of her androids entered. "Are you ready? Go!"  
  
=============================================================  
  
The Magog leapt out of nowhere to land in front of her.  
  
"Ah! Oh! Hi. I am way more dangerous than I look, and I really don't want to hurt you, but if you push me, I will. I promise." She privately hoped that the Magog would believe her; although she had discussed the matter with Dylan and Kyle and had agreed it was likely she may well need to, she was extremely uncomfortable with using the ring as an instrument of death.  
  
The Magog did not heed her warning and charged at her. She dodged him, dodged again, and the Magog ran into a loose power cable. The stench as the creature was electrocuted was unbearable. Beka had awoken during the exchange and saw another Magog approaching. "Trance!" she yelled, before collapsing back into unconsciousness.  
  
Instinctively, she produced a shield between herself and the Magog, but before she could take further action Rommie appeared from another corridor and threw a pole—the very same pole upon which she had been skewered only minutes earlier—and killed the second Magog.  
  
"Now we're even," she announced, with not a little satisfaction.  
  
"Rommie!" Trance cried in relief.  
  
"Run, Trance," Rommie urged her as she spotted the approaching swarms of Magog.  
  
"I've got it covered," Trance assured her, as she established a barrier. "Come on! We can make it!"  
  
They had fled through the corridors, pausing occasionally for Trance to seal off the way they had come or for Rommie to eliminate any Magog who crossed their paths.  
  
_=============================================================  
  
"COME ON!" Trance yelled. "What's wrong? Kyle! I need an update here!"  
  
She forced her mind into the ring again and again, willing it with all her strength to cut through the rock wall before her. Behind, she could hear a heavy volley of effectors from Rommie's force lances, the screams and yowls of dying Magog.  
  
What was so different about this wall? Why couldn't she cut through it like the others?  
  
"I've never encountered anything like _this_ before," the emerald spectre admitted as he materialised beside her. "At a guess...I'd say that whilst your willpower's focussed on getting through that rock, there's something behind it—something that doesn't want visitors in a hurry." He shivered instinctively at the prospect. "I don't know what, but it's got to be powerful, whatever it is, if it can counter your actions with the ring."  
  
She turned and instinctively skewered a Magog that Rommie hadn't seen as he leapt from a precipice above them. She set her jaw grimly. She had killed. She had used the ring to _kill_—  
  
_"Enough!"_ she thought to herself. This was not a good time for such a moral debate.  
  
_"I'm doing the best I can, Mr. Will-To-Power."_ The memory floated, unbidden, to the forefront of her mind.  
  
"Oh, where are you Tyr when I need you!" she groaned to herself. "A kilometre beyond this wall, that's where. Where else would you be?!"  
  
A faint and bitter smile gently formed upon her lips as the glimmerings of an idea formed in her imagination. "Rommie!" she called. "Kyle! I know how we can get through!"  
  
"Tell me what you need!" Rommie shouted over the cacophony of her force lances. "One hour ten minutes before Nova launch!"  
  
"Kyle, you said that whatever's beyond that wall is more powerful than my willpower, right? What about Rommie's, yours and mine, all working together?"  
  
"Well, _theoretically_ it might work," he shrugged, "but it's something I've never seen or heard of being done."  
  
"It's our only chance," Rommie nodded her consent to the plan. "What do we do?"  
  
"Don't look at me," Kyle admitted, "I'm outta my depth here. This place makes Mageddon look like a popgun."  
  
They stumbled at the sound of a muffled explosion, its vibrations shaking the rock beneath their feet. "What was that?" the deceased Green Lantern asked.  
  
Rommie nodded gloomily. "Point singularity projector. It's firing."  
  
"What's that? Never mind," he hastily added, "something for later."  
  
"Each of you, place a hand on my ring hand," Trance suggested. "Rommie, we don't have time for the full training, so here goes with the short version. Focus your mind, focus your will and channel it into the ring as tightly as possible. Imagine all your resolve and feelings pouring out in one big blast, a plasma beam. Focus as hard as you can...and hope."  
  
Rommie nodded confidently. She ignored the approaching Magog; they were unarmed and were no threat. She was not organic, Trance's ring would automatically protect her and Kyle Rayner was dead—there was, he had once assured them, very little that could hurt him as he was save for time itself.  
  
She closed her eyes, shut out all her senses as she bent her mind inversely, diving deep into her own consciousness. She channelled all her emotions, her protectiveness of her crew and friends, her love for poor, lost Gabriel, her unspoken feelings for her captain, the unique love she shared with her engineer, her anger at being boarded and attacked by the Magog swarmships. Her rage at how she had been so casually dismissed by the Magog's leader, pierced upon the end of a pole and skewered against a bulkhead. Left for dead, an inconsequential detail. A nothing.  
  
She was High Guard XMC A.I. Ten-Two-Eight-Four. She was Rommie, the incarnation of the most powerful vessel in all the Known Worlds. And she was far from being an 'inconsequential detail'. She would tear down this rock, blast it apart into its constituent atoms and rip them apart, split them completely.  
  
She would fight on, and she! Would! Not! Be! Denied!  
  
=============================================================  
  
_Dylan had awoken with a splitting headache by the time she arrived. "The Magog?" she heard him groan.  
  
"On the run, for now," she assured him. "I deployed Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum."  
  
He nodded, wincing in the pain that this caused him. "How are the lads?"  
  
"Efficient, as usual." Despite their situation, she was proud of the assault bots' performance. "They drove off the first wave of the Magog assault ships."  
  
"Yeah, but the Magog can always send more. Magog suck." Dylan grimaced as he tried to rise from the bed. "Aah!" he cried out, as raw, unfettered agony flooded through him from his injuries.  
  
"Easy, easy," Trance soothed him, gently guiding him back down as gently as possible.  
  
"Dylan, you're in no shape to get out of bed, never mind anything else," Beka shook her head at him.  
  
"The others..." he gasped as he sank gratefully into the soft folds of the mattress and pillow beneath him. "...Harper, Rev, Tyr...where are they?"  
  
Rommie and Beka exchanged glances. "Harper and Tyr have been taken to the worldship," the weary android admitted, "and Rev has gone after them. We have no idea what their current status is...I'm sorry Dylan." She smiled sadly and gently squeezed his hand as he covered his face with the other, blinking back tears of worry and frustration.  
  
"Can the_ Maru _launch?" he whispered.  
  
"The hangar bay doors have taken external damage," she grimaced. "The_ Maru _is intact, but we can't launch it."  
  
"So we don't use the_ Maru_," Trance put in. Her ring flared brightly in contrast to her dark uniform. "I've flown others through space before—I can do it again."  
  
Dylan smiled in silent thanks. "Okay," he groaned, "here's the plan. Rommie and Trance will go down and retrieve Harper, Tyr, and Rev. Rommie, have the immune system nanobots we gave the crew built up to a level where you can track them?"  
  
"Trance's don't seem to be working, but I'm getting a clear signal from Beka's."  
  
Beka narrowed her eyes angrily. "You planted tracking devices on us?"  
  
"Downloading signal parameters," Rommie mused aloud.  
  
The blonde captain shook her head. "So while those two are playing hero, what am I supposed to do?"  
  
"There's a Nova Bomb in the main armoury, weapons locker five," Dylan calmly announced. Beka and Trance looked stunned at this revelation; he seemed to fail to notice. "If they're not back here in three hours, I want you to launch it at the artificial sun in the middle of the Magog array and blow it to hell."  
  
"You're still carrying Nova bombs?" Trance looked worried. "I thought..."  
  
"...that I used them all up at Hephaestus?" he finished for her. "I did. But I scavenged one from GS92196, just in case."  
  
Beka grinned. "There's been a Nova bomb on board for months and Tyr didn't know about it? Gosh, won't he be surprised."  
  
Rommie nodded in agreement. "If he's still on that worldship when that bomb goes off, he'll be more than surprised. He'll be dead." She stared at her captain in an almost accusatory manner. "And so will we, Dylan."  
  
Dylan nodded sadly. "I'm sorry you two, but that thing has to go down. We can't risk it reaching the Known Worlds if we can possibly help it. I'd go myself, but ah..." he gestured vaguely at his bandages. "You'll just have to get back here in time. I'm sorry, but there's no other way. Andromeda, release all Nova bomb controls to Beka Valentine, authorization ten-break- alpha."  
  
"Authorisation released," Andromeda calmly announced.  
  
He looked at Beka. "Three hours. Not a second more. Good luck to you all."  
  
=============================================================  
  
The mood was a determined one as Rommie and Trance strode through Andromeda's corridors, shooting the occasional stray Magog along the way.  
  
"Internal defences back on-line," Andromeda announced as they reached an airlock.  
  
Rommie smiled sourly as they stepped inside. "Finally. Now tell me, what do I need to do Trance?"  
  
"Nothing," Trance smiled. "Just relax and enjoy the ride."  
  
So saying, a green light emerged from her ring, sheathing them both in emerald energy as the outer doors opened...  
  
_=============================================================  
  
In an explosion of shards of rock, an emerald beam shone through into a vast, round chamber, so great that it was impossible for the three intruders to see the opposite side. In its very centre stood a seemingly slender needle of stone, several kilometres high, standing like a lonely sentinel. A series of stone platforms led to it, floating above the immeasurable depths of the chasm that lay between the spire and the ledge the intruders now stood upon.  
  
Upon the distant platform, they saw it. A tall and slender, somehow distorted humanoid shape, like a shadow formed of flames. Its surface seemed to ripple, blazing blood-red eyes burning into their very life essences, piercing their physical selves as surely as a lance-tip.  
  
Snarls and cackles, bestial in the extremes echoed all about the chamber, as though in worship of the great being. The rank stench of equally clotted sweat and blood caught in the matted pelts of the Magog was sickeningly overwhelming, engulfing them.  
  
Still the fiery being stared at them, boring deeper. Of the few intruders who had disturbed its rest over the brief millenniae it had rested in this chamber, all had thus far succumbed, bent to its will and reduced to little more than unresisting morsels of flesh for its Magog servants.  
  
These intruders were different, very different. The entity had never before encountered the bearers of the ancient power, although upon its lengthy travels through dimensions and realities it had certainly learned legends of such warriors.  
  
All three swiftly recovered from the assault, it felt an emotion it hadn't experienced in a very long time.  
  
_Curiosity._  
  
Curiosity in how swiftly they would die.  
  
=============================================================  
  
"If anyone's seen something like that before, speak now because I certainly haven't," Trance shouted over the noise of the Magog and Rommie's weapons' fire.  
  
"It's way more powerful than Darkseid or anything I've even heard of..." Kyle breathed.  
  
"Before we left, I accessed the unsealed memory files," Rommie shouted, blasting away with both force lances. "When..._I_...travelled to M86 under the command of Captain Perim and encountered the worldship..." she shook her head in slight confusion. "...after the Magog had killed my crew, I believe it boarded me. It was there for point-oh-five seconds, but it was there, staring around Command..." She shivered involuntarily. "I have no idea what it is or how to destroy it...but it's a safe bet that it's some kind of leader."  
  
Trance focussed on her ring, bending her mind as she remembered the technique Kyle had once mentioned. It had to work...  
  
Her right hand caught the newly-forged power ring before it could fall a complete inch.  
  
"Rommie!" she yelled. "Here!"  
  
The expression on the android's beautiful face as she snatched the ring out of the air was, despite their dire situation, priceless indeed to behold. "What are you doing Trance?" she asked warily.  
  
"Use it! My ring responded to your thoughts, your imagination, your will, it accepted you—we wouldn't have got through otherwise! That ring should work for you, so take it! Find the others and get them out of here! I'll catch up later! Kyle, go with her, show Rommie how to use the ring to fly others through space on the way!"  
  
"What about you?" Rommie asked, slipping the ring onto her left forefinger and shooting a swift glance down at herself as a Green Lantern uniform materialised about her. "What will you be doing?"  
  
Trance grinned tightly as she leapt into flight from the ledge. "Hitting that thing with everything I've got!"  
  
"Trance!" Kyle shouted. "Trance, don't do this! You can't be ready for this yet! Hell, _Parallax_ wouldn't stand a chance against that thing and he could destroy an entire universe!"  
  
"You're forgetting something," she assured her mentor. "This isn't just about raw power—it's about will as well. And right now mine's the most powerful around here!"  
  
With that, she was gone, too far for them to talk even if they screamed at the tops of their lungs. Rommie smiled slightly as she reached up with her left hand to feel the slender mask upon her face. "This way," she told Kyle, leading the dead Lantern toward another tunnel as she readied a force lance in her right hand. "Rev was here a minute ago, I can feel it. We have to hurry! There's only twenty minutes until Beka launches the Nova bomb!"  
  
He looked at her, distraught, as they rushed the tunnel entrance, a steady shower of effectors leading the way. "She's not ready," he whispered. "She...oh god, I've failed her. I thought I could help my successor...and now she's going to die because of me!"  
  
"No she's not," Rommie grinned knowingly. "You may be an expert about Green Lanterns, but you've got a lot to learn about Trance. I've known her for about a year now, and trust me when I say she _will_ survive. Even if she doesn't beat that thing, she'll be back. She was formidable and skilled in surviving impossible odds without the ring; with it, she's almost unstoppable." She halted and sighed in exasperation. "We're running out of time and I can't get the homing beacon any finer than a few hundred meters...I'm going to have to call them."  
  
Her eyes closed as she accessed her communications array, a more powerful device than even High Guard sub-vocal transmitter implants—courtesy of a certain Seamus Harper. How ironic that today the upgrade could save his life.  
  
_Harper. Harper, do you hear me?_ she transmitted. _Harper!  
_  
_Rommie? Is that you?_ His response was clear, although he sounded slightly panicked.  
  
_Harper, listen to me carefully. I need you to start making noise—a lot of it.  
_  
_Noise? But that'll attract Magog,_ he protested.  
  
_In twenty minutes, Beka's going to launch a Nova bomb at this place. If you wish to be elsewhere, I would start shouting.  
_  
_Nova bo_—"NOVA BOMB?!?" His shouts echoed confusingly within the tunnels. "NOISE! I'm with ya! Rommie! Over here! Rommie! Follow the sound of the voice! Rommie's looking for our voices! Make sound!"  
  
Rommie winced in annoyance as Tyr started shouting as well, creating even more disorienting echoes. "This way," she shrugged, leading Kyle towards an aperture.  
  
"It's a maze in here," he complained.  
  
=============================================================  
  
"I know you!" Trance screamed as she charged the glowing figure. "Somehow ...long ago..." A little piece of her mind, separated from operating the ring for safety's sake, provided her with the memory of how she had learned so very long ago of this entity. The being who had given her hope when all she owned, all she had been and known, was despair. The being who had shown her what this entity was capable of. The one who had freely admitted that this entity was beyond his abilities, but not hers.  
  
She understood now. This had been what he had referred to.  
  
Ribbons of flame leapt forth from its fingers, scorching her grievously before her ring sparkled and shielded her. Her grimaced through the pain, forming an energy blast that shook the entity.  
  
For an instant she dared hope that she might defeat it.  
  
That hope was destroyed as the entity rallied itself, straightening as it seemed to absorb the power she was pouring at it.  
  
_Tricky, tricky,_ she winced as she dodged another ball of flames. _Need to be trickier than it can.  
_  
She split her focus, shattered her mind, and hoped. Hoped this would work.  
  
A glowing green sledgehammer passed harmlessly through the entity, dissipating slightly as the creature tried to feed upon it, then completely as she dismissed it. Conventional assault was out. An oversized tap appeared as she dehydrated the air, spraying the captured fluid onto flames to no avail.  
  
If anything, it seemed almost amused.  
  
Trance wasn't. She was only just getting started.  
  
It was, she concluded as she looped another flickering tendril of flame, some form of energy being, which presumably accounted for how it could absorb her ring's blasts.  
  
A memory materialised; the time of Zero Hour when Kyle had fought Parallax himself. A particular battle fought during that time that Kyle had heard about from another man who had carried the name of Green Lantern. How the renegade, Extant, had killed the time traveller Waverider and suffused his physical body with 'Rider's chronal energy, gaining his powers and skills.  
  
_Well,_ she grinned broadly, _it worked on one energy being. Let's see if it works with this one.  
_  
=============================================================  
  
"Five minutes to launch, Kyle. We're not gonna make it." Her voice was calm despite her resignation.  
  
Since Harper had created her, she had always had to consider that she—or her ship-self—would be destroyed, each part of her mind and physical form separate from the other as it died. Now, it seemed that today she would meet her end.  
  
She vowed that she would not meet it meekly, that she would fight to survive to the very last of her abilities and beyond them.  
  
=============================================================  
  
Using every last trick he'd learned on Earth Harper, still shouting, managed to pry a hand free of the goo. "Whoo. Rommie! I hope that bomb explodes soon, because I'm getting exhausted. Rommie!" He paused and gasped for air as he turned his attention to his other hand.  
  
"Green Lantern!" Tyr roared.  
  
=============================================================  
  
Rommie had taken to using the ring to fly quite well, and now she and Kyle made their way far more swiftly through the tunnels. Blazing away with her force lance and forming plasma beams with the ring, she fought on, tearing through the Magog positions. She homed in on her crew's cries, as the echoes lessened and their cries swam into focus—  
  
_"—seal off Command!"  
  
(—Rommie, please, I beg you, oh please—)  
  
__**(—the screams of Corporal Shimmering Sunlight as the Than Lancer was butchered shaking her, instilling fear into both her crew and herself—her, a warship and afraid!)  
**  
"—fall back, FALL BA—!"  
  
(—they're breaking through the hull on all decks!—)  
  
**(—we have to get to slipstream!—)  
**_  
_"—this is impossible. Captain? Your orders—"  
  
(—Andromeda—!)  
  
**(—she trembled within her matrix, striving desperately to disconnect her sensors in the slipstream core as her engineers were rendered limb from limb—)  
**  
"—KILL ME! OH GOD! PLEASE, ANDROMEDA, PLEASE KILL ME! KILL ME BEFORE THEY CAN!"  
_  
—with a start, she tumbled from her flight. Her reflexes enabled her to turn the tumble into a graceful roll followed off by a mighty leap upwards, maintaining the momentum of her path, but she was deeply shaken.  
  
She remembered it all so very clearly now. Her crew's deaths. How she had been violated once before by these, these—  
  
Anger surged through her. And that anger now fuelled her in battle.  
  
A Magog pounced, his leap calculated to land upon her lower back and pitch her to the ground. An energy spike pierced him, vaporising his furry body even as life fled him. A dozen swarmed from another tunnel entrance only for a glittering energy beam to engulf them all, killing them in less than a second. Another armed with a gauss rifle had his skull crushed by an extended force lance.  
  
Followed closely by her dead companion, Rommie fought on.  
  
=============================================================  
  
"Rommie?" Harper hesitantly asked, as the sounds of running feet grew nearer. "Man, am I glad to see you..."  
  
He gulped as a pair of Magog entered the chamber, snarling and hissing to one another. He followed their line-of-sight and realised that they'd seen his hand. His loose hand. "Hey, I can explain," he grinned weakly. "I just got one word for you guys: ROMMIE!"  
  
As the leading Magog passed Tyr, a leather-clad leg shot out, connecting neatly with the creature's nose, driving the bones up and into its brain and killing it. A second rushed the former mercenary, claws extended, only to meet a flurry of blows that beat it back and culminated only when Tyr slammed his booted heel against its throat. There was a distinct _click_ of crumpling tracheal bones.  
  
Harper looked at him, a mixture of incredulity and amazement battling for supremacy of his facial features. "You never told me your feet were free!"  
  
The Nietzschean sighed heavily as he relaxed slightly, returning to his struggle with the goo. "I wanted it to be a surprise."  
  
=============================================================  
  
All too suddenly, Rommie found herself flying into a vast chamber, thousands of levels deep with thousands more passages that led into it.  
  
"Oh, come _on!_" Kyle grumbled. "I mean, you'd think they'd have signs or something!"  
  
He instinctively ducked, albeit to little avail, as a volley of gauss rounds tore through him. He sighed in defeat: sometimes there were advantages to being dead and composed of light. He floated closer to Rommie as he espied their attackers; a squad of Magog armed with rifles, sheltering in a little gully.  
  
"Take cover!" Rommie shouted, forming a crude shield. Whilst she had often aided Trance in her training, what the purple alien seemed not to have realised was that she had learned a few things herself. "Go!"  
  
Together they flew back, the former Lantern wincing in sympathy as Rommie created a suit of battle armour reminiscent of her planetary-warfare-bots.  
  
"Just great," she growled as she stepped out into the open once again, obliterating the Magog position in a brief but intense hail of fire. "Magog with guns. This just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it? Come on!"  
  
=============================================================  
  
"How much closer do we need to be to deploy the Nova bomb?" Beka asked, fingers dancing over the piloting controls.  
  
Andromeda shrugged as she materialised her hologram beside her acting- captain. "We can fire it from here, but they'd have a lot of time to intercept it. I'd like to close at least another thirty LS."  
  
"Am I really going to drop it?" she groaned, resting her chin in her hands. "I'm in way over my head here."  
  
Andromeda smiled reassuringly from the screen. "Well, that's what happens in life. We keep going and going and going until we've gone too far, and then we have to deal with it."  
  
"The important thing to remember is that Dylan trusted you with command. He believes in you, and so do I," her hologram continued.  
  
"All of us do," her image on the viewscreen took over again. "Believe me, Beka, you are the right person at the right time in the right place. You're going to make the right decision."  
  
Beka grinned at Andromeda's visages. "Is that a guess, or do you know something I don't?"  
  
Andromeda laughed lightly as she shook her hologram's head. "No, Beka. It's not a guess. It's a leap of faith."  
  
=============================================================  
  
Trance gritted her teeth as she plunged the emerald shard into the entity with all her might.  
  
_Gotta keep the surface area to a minimum...lose less power from the ring that way. Come on, suck it up, suck it up you little green beauty...  
_  
The entity wavered, stung by her attack. It studied the growing injury almost dispassionately, then turned to her once more.  
  
Trance shrieked, once and only once, as it engulfed her completely in its fiery embrace.  
  
=============================================================  
  
"Another squad of riflers," Kyle groaned as he flew for cover.  
  
"Don't they have _any_ respect for tradition?" Rommie shook her head despondently as she created the planetary-warfare-suit once again. It took her but a few seconds to reduce the offending party of Magog to a rapidly expanding mist of blood that drenched her as she dissipated the war suit once again. "Whatever happened to just _mauling_ people to death?!"  
  
=============================================================  
  
Beka seemed to reach a decision. "Andromeda, bring us in, maximum PSL. On my mark, I want you to fire everything we've got: missiles, drones, AP guns, lasers, everything."  
  
"Beka, conventional weapons won't even dent that thing."  
  
Andromeda's protests fell on deaf ears. "You have your orders. And... MARK."  
  
=============================================================  
  
"What was that?" Kyle looked about nervously as the ground shook and stray boulders fell through him, rebounding harmlessly from Rommie's shield.  
  
"A starter's gun," she realised as the pounding increased. "Go!"  
  
She poured her mind and willpower into the ring, propelling herself onwards at an ever-increasing speed.  
  
=============================================================  
  
With a final twist, Harper finally managed to free himself. He leapt down from the wall. "I can't believe it! I'm—"  
  
"The word you're looking for is 'dead'," a gravelly Magog voice growled from the entrance, leaping into the cave and brandishing a gauss rifle.  
  
Another snarl echoed from the shadows, another furry form leapt down from the tunnel's mouth. The faint light of the cave glittered dully from armour stained with Magog blood.  
  
Harper's eyes grew wide. "Rev?"  
  
=============================================================  
  
With a scream of rage and exultation, Trance tore her way out of the entity's grasp, impaling it upon a glowing spike of power. She smiled as the entity staggered as the ring fed upon it, draining its energy and absorbing it. She focussed her will even further, intensifying her attack.  
  
=============================================================  
  
"We've gotten their attention," Andromeda's hologram coolly announced. "Swarmships are deploying. They're trying to intercept our missiles."  
  
Beka nodded in satisfaction. "Good. That'll keep 'em busy. Now, Andromeda, I want you to vent your atmosphere. Dump your water tanks and toss every piece of crap you've got in the cargo holds out the hatches.  
  
Andromeda frowned from the screen. "You're trying to confuse them?"  
  
Beka shrugged. "What's one little bomb in a crowd?"  
  
"Venting, dumping, and tossing, Captain." Andromeda's hologram smiled. "Incoming fire—point-singularity-projectors."  
  
"Good for them. Andromeda, ready the Nova bomb. And, FIRE!"  
  
"Nova bomb is away. Impact in Ten."  
  
=============================================================  
  
_"Nine. Eight."  
_  
"Rev, what are you doing?" Harper asked, backing up against a wall.  
  
_"Seven. Six. Five."  
_  
"My name," the Magog snarled, "is Red Plague, and I do what I must."  
  
_"Four. Three. Two. One. IMPACT!"  
_  
=============================================================  
  
In Andromeda's Command Centre, the viewscreens went completely white, momentarily blinded by the flash. Beka closed her eyes at the sight. "Trance. Rommie, I'm so sorry," she whispered.  
  
=============================================================  
  
A wall of flames swept through the worldship's tunnels, incinerating anything it touched. Magog yowled and screeched as they writhed in a final dance of agony.  
  
=============================================================  
  
Rommie tore through the rock wall and back into the vast chamber, leaping from the ledge and tumbling into the cavernous space's depths as a gout of flame burst forth from the hole she had blasted with her ring. The ring flashed as Kyle leapt into it.  
  
=============================================================  
  
In a small cave, two Magog and a human staggered, fighting to keep from being pitched to the ground.  
  
=============================================================  
  
Trance was flung backwards by the blast, and she fought to keep the flames from herself. The entity stumbled, down on one flaming knee as great waves of fire and raw, unfettered energy flowed into it.  
  
Some of the energy flowed from the entity and into her ring, into her, and she cried out as it burned her hand. She fought desperately, but in vain. The power ring leapt from her hand, driven by the flames, and tumbled into the chasm below.  
  
She looked down at herself in amazement as she took in the sight of the flames of shadows now being generated from her own body. Her outline rippled with them, and she blurred as she dived after the power ring. Dived into the darkness.  
  
The entity ignored her, focusing instead upon continuing to absorb the power of the explosion. The wielder of the emerald power was gone and no longer attacked it. For now, it was content to allow the wielder to escape or die as she wished.  
  
=============================================================  
  
As the screens cleared, Beka's jaw fell agape as the explosion collapsed inwards on itself and disappeared. The worldship, though battered, remained mostly intact.  
  
"That's impossible! Tell me that's impossible!"  
  
Andromeda looked confused to say the least. "I don't know. I just...don't know.  
  
The former trader-captain sighed in defeat. "Andromeda, bring us back around."  
  
=============================================================  
  
Kyle Rayner held up a translucent emerald digit as he emerged from the power ring. "Ah...what was that?"  
  
Rommie heaved herself from a pile of rubble, dusting herself off as she activated her sensors. "Elevated radiation levels, EMP X-rays, gamma rays, oscillated neutrinos. It was a Nova. We lived through a Nova?"  
  
The dead man's eyes narrowed in confusion. "I thought that was supposed to be impossible?"  
  
"It is," she grinned. "but we have a habit of doing the impossible."  
  
=============================================================  
  
Bloodmist grinned widely. "Fools!" he crowed triumphantly. "They thought they could defeat us so easily. You understand now, Red Plague? Everything is possible for the Harbingers of the Abyss."  
  
The Reverend nodded respectfully. "Yes, I understand. But then, I understood all along." He snarled, deep in his throat, lightly spinning on his feet as he stabbed Bloodmist with his claws. "'Behold the fiery beast with razor tail that cuts through mountains, trampling castles down. Inhale the stench that makes the whole world wail.'"  
  
Bloodmist growled weakly, defiant to the last. "But which of us is the beast?" he wheezed. "Me, my master, or you?"  
  
With a roar of rage, Rev twisted his claws where they had pierced Bloodmist, ripping into his internal organs, killing him as he tore his claws out through his victim's chest.  
  
Tyr sagged against the wall in exhaustion. "A Magog quoting Dante," he observed.  
  
Rev nodded. "Canto Seventeen."  
  
"Uh, guys," Harper yelled, as the cave shook under the force of a minor tremor, "can we save the poetry for later—get the hell out of here?"  
  
=============================================================  
  
The Spirit of the Abyss howled in pain, still absorbing energy from the Nova bomb's explosion.  
  
=============================================================  
  
Trance exhausted the last of the foul power that she had absorbed from the entity above, tumbling into an uncontrolled free-fall after the glowing ring. She reached out—  
  
—she _missed._  
  
Unable to further control her descent, she fell past the ring, crying out in protest. She would not fail! She was the one chosen to bear the name and power ring of Green Lantern, and she would _not_ allow that great legacy to die with her today!  
  
She lashed out desperately in one last, doomed attempt.  
  
The tip of her tail neatly snaked through the falling ring.  
  
Panting in exhaustion, she regained control of the ring, hovering in mid- air.  
  
To continue to fight that entity was futile. And—she shivered—she honestly did not relish the idea of battling it again, so soon, when she was weakened and the ring drained. The evil it had exuded...it would have to wait for another time.  
  
She cut her way through the rock wall, homing in on Rommie's ring.  
  
=============================================================  
  
Harper stumbled, sagging against a wall as the odd little party made their way through the worldship's tunnels. "Man, my guts are killing me," he groaned.  
  
Rev tried to help him up again. "Harper. Quickly, we must go."  
  
Tyr extended his bone blades as several Magog appeared out of nowhere—  
  
—a mixed volley of force lance effectors and emerald plasma beams cut down the Magog before they knew they were even under attack.  
  
Tyr snorted, shaking his head as he laid his bone blades flat once more. "I know but one person idiotic enough to try and rescue three dead men from a Magog hive."  
  
"That would be me, I suppose," a familiar voice echoed throughout the cavern.  
  
"R- _Rommie?_" Harper's eyes almost popped out of his head as the beauteous android floated through the entrance surrounded by an emerald aura, a power ring upon her finger and a ripped and battered Green Lantern uniform hanging in shreds from her body. "_Wow._"  
  
"Rommie, where is Trance?" Rev asked, worried. "Why do you have her ring?"  
  
"I don't—she made a new one so I could find you all whilst she took on this—_creature_, this being that seemed to be composed of flames."  
  
"The Spirit of the Abyss," he breathed. "The god of the Magog itself. She- she is surely—"  
  
"Right here?" They turned to see Trance, bloodied, battered and bruised, hovering in the cavern's entrance. "Hi guys. I don't know about you, but getting outta here—very, _very_ good idea. Hold tight."  
  
So saying, she and Rommie enshrouded the others in the same auras that surrounded themselves, flying as fast as they could toward the surface, blazing a fiery green trail as they did so.  
  
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Andromeda's Command deck was wreathed in smoke and flames, trembling under the Magog swarmship assault.  
  
"We've just lost the secondary missile battery," Andromeda reported. "Hull integrity is severely compromised. Beka, we have to break off."  
  
"Like hell we do," Beka smiled grimly. "I promised you'd come back with your crew or not at all. I always keep my promises."  
  
"We are out of offensive missiles, and the AP tanks are down to one-tenth full."  
  
"I guess this is it. Andromeda, charge your slipstream cores to overload. Prepare to eject your EMG's at the world ship."  
  
"Aye-aye, Captain," her hologram acknowledged. "Charging...WAIT! I'm detecting a launch from the surface. It's them!"  
  
Beka whooped aloud as her fingers danced over the controls. "Plotting intercept course," she grinned victoriously. "Andromeda, lay down covering fire. Tell Dylan to hold on tight, 'cause we are _goin' in._ Keep it together, Trance," she added under her breath, "We're coming. Just keep that li'l ring of yours pumping its juice."  
  
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Harper flinched instinctively as they rocketed past a Magog swarmship, putting the nimble little vicious vessel to shame as Trance and Rommie outmanoeuvred it. "Oh, _man_. Trance, ya mean to say this is what this is like for you _all the time?!_ Whoo-hoo!"  
  
Trance grinned happily as they outdistanced the Magog ships, dancing through their hail of fire. "It certainly is. Just gotta keep concentrating and we'll be just fine."  
  
"Magnificent," Tyr whispered. "It's all so...so _beautiful_ out here."  
  
"Tyr, we could get blown outta space any second now and you're _sightseeing_?" Harper was incredulous.  
  
The Nietzschean smiled. "The great philosopher—and indeed a great many others—urge us to take every advantage of each day, to admire things that are interesting and wonderful for you may never get such another chance to do so."  
  
Trance exchanged a private, knowing glance with him, and he nodded respectfully to her as she returned his smile.  
  
"Oh, Andromeda, am I glad to see me," Rommie sighed in relief as the pride of the Systems Commonwealth swam into view ahead.  
  
"Ay-men to that," Harper agreed."  
  
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"Got 'em," Andromeda beamed at Beka.  
  
She gripped the slipstream controls firmly. "It's about time. Let's get out of here."  
  
With that, she slammed them into slipstream.  
  
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Harper slept fitfully, his dreams and nightmares merging. Within them he saw himself being attacked by Magog. He suddenly awoke, screaming.  
  
He eventually realised he was on a bed in the Med Deck, and that Trance, Tyr, and Rev were present. Dylan lay in the next bed over, unconscious.  
  
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! It's okay!" Trance was instantly at his side. She gently took his hand in hers, soothing him tenderly.  
  
He sighed in relief. "Oh, man. Talk about nightmares! I dreamt I was being infested by Magog eggs, and they were, uh..." Harper trailed off as he noticed the others were looking serious. "...not a dream?" he asked, his terror slowly, inexorably returning.  
  
"I'm afraid not." Rev admitted.  
  
"But everything turned out ok, right? I mean, we escaped, uh, the bad guys' worldship was destroyed, and you just took the eggs out with your magic ring and patented Trancer-doctoring skill, right?"  
  
"We've escaped, at any rate," Tyr admitted.  
  
Rev sighed. "The worldship was not destroyed, although we did cripple it somewhat. As for the eggs..." He trailed off, hesitant.  
  
Trance cupped his hand in hers as she sat on the bed beside him. "Magog larvae, they kind of wrap themselves around things and when you try to take them out, they attack the host. I figured out a way to get them out, but I wasn't sure if it was going to work, so I tried it out on Tyr, and he survived—barely."  
  
"But I'm not a Nietzschean." Harper pointed out, trying to hide his panic.  
  
Rev held up a vial of a white substance. "This is a drug. It is a lukaprine variant. If you and Tyr take it religiously and remain in otherwise good health, it will keep the larvae dormant for a time." He passed it to Harper, who looked at it dubiously.  
  
"And while you are taking it, we will try very hard to find another way to get them out," Trance added. "Everything will be just fine. We promise."  
  
Harper snorted. "Gee, I feel better already. Just out of curiosity, what happens when you can't figure out a way to get the larvae out? We're supposed to take this forever?"  
  
Rev shook his head slowly. Harper grew worried for him; his feelings for most Magog aside, he knew his friend must have gone through hell on the worldship. The sight of that thing, the 'Spirit of the Abyss'...that had to have been hard on him, and his faith. "No. Eventually, the medication will cease to be effective. If we have not found an alternative treatment by that time, the larvae will become active and you will die."  
  
Harper groaned. "Why don't you just shoot me now?"  
  
"Harper!" Trance exclaimed, releasing his hand.  
  
"No, I mean it, Trance. I don't want to walk around life waiting for my stomach to burst open. You shoulda just left me to die. You shoulda..."  
  
Tyr slammed his hand against the wall in his fury, interrupting the diminutive engineer.  
  
He mimicked Harper in a whiny voice, "Kill me. I'm doomed. You shoulda just let me die." He abandoned the voice, and bellowed, "Listen to yourself! Child, if I can teach you one thing..."  
  
Harper cut in. "If you're gonna give me anymore of that 'Where there's life, there's hope' crap...thanks. 'Cause I really need to hear it right about now."  
  
Tyr seemed pleased, and faked a backhanded slap at Harper affectionately.  
  
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Trance looked over to the bed and sighed in exasperation as Dylan slowly sat up, Lazarus-like. Harper was sleeping, peacefully now, in the next bed over and she didn't want a full-scale argument that would disturb him. "You have to rest," she chided the High Guard officer.  
  
"I know, I know," he smiled through a faint flicker of pain. "It's just...I saw your flights from down here—Rommie patched them through to the monitors when I asked nicely—and I just wanted to say...great work. You succeeded magnificently, Trance. And thank you. I...I just wish I could have been there with you to help."  
  
She smiled back at him, easing him back down into the pillows. "That's alright. And...thanks Dylan."  
  
He chuckled lightly, eyelids flickering with encroaching sleep. "Thank you, Trance Gemini...Green Lantern."  
  
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Author's Note: Wa-hoo! It's just gone midnight and I've just finished this! Hope you like it, 'cos I've worn a bloody great hole in the middle of my poor old keyboard and I can't read anything on the keys they've been so well used. I am so surfing the wave of Writer's High at the mo (the side- effect of writing for eight hours straight for you lucky lot!) See you in a week or two!


	4. Emerald Sunlight

Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews guys! Sorry about the delay but I have _V._ limited web access at the mo, on top of which Chapter Six kept coming out wrong. Problem's fixed! Just a bit of a chat:

X-Over: I was wondering a bit about your suggestion to give Rev a power ring before he left: how'd that work? What ideas've you got? I haveta say, I dunno how a ring would take to a Magog, even a Wayist. Plus, I thought that when Rev left in 'Ouroboros' it came as a surprise even to Trance—so would she have known to give him a ring? And ultimately power rings are weapons—would he have accepted? Interesting idea, and I _am_ looking into it. Fortunately Rev's departure is a way (no pun intended!) off so there's plenty of time. If you've got any ideas, contact me at . I need your mind!

The Mad Dragon: Funny you should suggest the avatar idea, as that was actually the original plan I had: Kyle shows up, near death, gives the ring to Trance and they somehow save his mind and he exists as a hologram (á là Dylan in 'Unconquerable Man') until Harper can build him an Avatar and then he heads for home again. However, there _is_ a very good reason why 'The Gemini Lantern' has gone the way it has instead—firstly, it was _way_ too similar to another 'Drom fanfic I'm working on, an AU by the name of 'Of Larvae and Love' (right here: ) and secondly I couldn't get it to work quite right, even after spending _four hours_ or so solid. It kept coming out...well, duff, to put it mildly. Not a spectacular disaster, it just kept fizzling out like a very small firework in a torrential downpour. I still might be able to do something with it though, but I can't promise anything.

By the way, not that I'm objecting or anything, but what exactly do you mean by, "P.S. I am so glad you didn't use Hal Jordan."? Is it just that you prefer Kyle or something...sue me, I'm always interested in a good natter. And I'm also glad that this fanfic's appealing to Green Lantern fans _as well_ as Andromeda fans. The reason I used Kyle instead of Hal was because, quite frankly I have quite a fair wack of info on Kyle's time as Green Lantern and I didn't want to send a power ring vulnerable to _yellow_ into the Known Worlds of the Andromeda universe. Hell, I've got more stuff on _Guy Gardner's_ time as a GL than Hal. (I bought a bloody huge stack of 'Justice League International's at a cheap rate) Ugh...no way was I sending _Guy_ to be Trance's mentor! With Guy things would've gone to hell—or rather, Rambo—in two seconds flat. He's alright as Warrior though...well, as long as he's someone _else's_ problem...preferably a long way off, like on another planet.

By the way, with this chapter I'm going to have to reclassify this fic as '**R**' rated. The reasons for this should become apparent later...

Addition to disclaimer: I do not own anything whatsoever from _The Lord of the Rings_ or _The Hobbit_. I'm probably being over-cautious, but I'd rather not incur the wrath of anyone with expensive lawyers even by mistake.

Further apologies for thus far mostly just rehashing the existing episodes for Chapters Two and Three, but I assure you I've got an absolutely bonza beaut lined up right here and ready ta rock your socks off. I actually wrote more than half the first chapter of this fabled 'pure original' (Chapter Four) before even starting Chapter Three (yes, I am _very_ scattershot in my writing!) as I knew vaguely what would be happening in C-3 (namely Trance's battle with the Spirit of the Abyss and the generation of Rommie's ring) and what was on the cards to be going down in this, C-4 (the _chapter_, not the high-explosive favoured by the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment of Her Majesty's Armed Forces of Great Britain! Aw, dear, the weird ideas you lot get...! ;D) which consists of...

...oh, come _on_. You didn't think I'd ruin it for you, did you? What the hell do you take me for? Read on, you great big lazybones you.

Without giving much away, in these chapters I had quite a few things that I wanted to do, not necessarily in the following order. First, I wanted to get into Trance's mind and show her attitudes regarding the way her life's going what with getting the power ring and so on. (and any uncharitable types wanting to make rude comments about Trance's mind, vis-à-vis its size, levels of activity, or its state of existence, geddout _now_. I may not be some teary-eyed lovesick fanatic, but I am just a _little_ bit tetchy when people start blazing characters despite knowing full well what they're reading and who's involved.)

Second, I wanted to show the reactions of various elements and groups to the presence of this 'ringbearer'. When working out how to run this fanfic, I felt (though I may have been wrong) that you lot wouldn't want to have to wade through rehash after rehash so I decided to just get on with things and only redo the really important stuff like Trance going toe-to-toe with the Spirit of the Abyss and absorbing (and later exhausting) a little of its power (more on that in a future chapter, okay? I will get back to that point). We _will_ find out just how things went differently with 'A Honey Offering' and 'Starcrossed Lovers' and everything else, just without having to wade through the whole nine thousand yards when a couple of references and flashbacks and whatnot will do just as well.

I've read plenty of Andromeda fanfic over the course of the past year. Some of it is bloody brilliant ('Invictus', 'The _Maru_ Diaries' and 'The Longest Shortest Day In History' to name but a few, there's about a couple of hundred that I love to pieces and naming them all would take too long), some of it is just good clean fun but not really that thought-provoking (admittedly I'm probably hardly one to talk on this matter, doing a crossover like this!) but there's something I intend to address in what you are about to read: _Nietzscheans._ This bunch, and the Drago-Kazov Pride in particular, are sadly all too often relegated to the 'shoot-on-sight-baddies' role, the 'evil-red-shirts' as it were, shorter on lifespan than they are on brain, or so they get portrayed.

We're talking about _homo sapiens invictus_ here. Every single member of this species is supposed to be a scheming, wily individual potentially capable of being a faction all by themselves, making and breaking alliances as and when it truly suits them, constantly surrounded and enveloped in many-layered webs of ever-increasing intrigue. To be sure, there are, or in some cases _were_, Nietzscheans who had moral limits to their activities such as the Tarazed Nietzscheans and the Kodiak Pride respectively, but the point is that Nietzscheans are supposed to be _intelligent._ Of course they aren't always _victorious_, but surely the defeat of a canny strategist and highly-trained elite fighter is much more satisfying than the casual defeat of yet another fresh-from-the-factory minor nuisance.

Thirdly, I wanted to round up on some of the events of the last chapter. I suppose an explanation's in order for why Dylan remained in Medical whilst on the box he went gung-ho on the worldship. Considering that at the end of 'Its Hour Come Round At Last' he was not merely at Death's door but inside the waiting room, flicking through a sports car magazine and admiring the wallpaper and tropical fish tank, I've always thought it an example of dodgy plotting that in 'The Widening Gyre' he was conveniently patched up just so he could (cliché alert!) _break his leg_ and get even more in the way of sympathy votes.

Yes, it's supposedly to show just what a medical miracle worker Trance is, but that's still beyond the pale as narrative devices go. I mean, if we'd seen her passing a glowing hand over his unconscious form in Medical whilst Andromeda tried to find out why her sensors in there were non-operational, I could've gone for that as an explanation, but that stuff never made it to the screen and instead we just get a throwaway line, admittedly well-delivered. So, in C-3, when Dylan got himself injured, he heals at a slightly more realistic rate. True, in this he's supposed to have been up and about for 'Exit Strategies' but that was set three weeks after 'The Widening Gyre'.

Now I dunno about you lot, but I'm interested in getting on with this (not that I don't enjoy sharing my thoughts i.e. rambling like a complete loon) so here we go...

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**CHAPTER FOUR:**

**EMERALD SUNLIGHT**

_"Men in general judge by their eyes rather than by their hands;_

_because everyone is in a position to watch, few are in a position_

_to come in close touch with you. Everyone sees you for what you_

_appear to be, few experience what you really are. And those few_

_dare not gainsay the many who are backed by the majesty of the_

_state..."_

—"The Prince" page 58, XVIII "_How princes should honour their word_",

_by _Niccolò Machiavelli

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The battered old cargo ship hung listlessly in space, manoeuvring thrusters feebly firing in an exercise in futility as the raiding vessel closed in. Alone, unescorted and barely armed, the slothful craft had been swiftly overwhelmed by the custom-modified gunboat.

The freighter's airlock slid open soundlessly in the icy cold of space. An emerald light shone from the hatch, and a figure clad in green and black streaked out at an impossible speed heading for the raiding craft, firing energy blasts from a glowing green ring. Behind her, the freighter suddenly powered up, surging along, point-defence-lasers blazing away.

The pirates' gunboat, weapons crippled under the barrage, attempted to make a run for it, to escape into slipstream.

The emerald figure closed in on it, grappling lines springing into existence and snaring the ship even as the slip portal opened.

As Fleet Marshal Cuchulain Nez-Pierce sat back in his supple leather seat, he laced his fingers in thought as he stared at the drama unfolding upon the screen that adorned his desk. The Andromeda's team had done a truly wonderful job, he mused, in their placement of the sensor beacons. Of course, it had taken the uncomfortably intense interests of the Sheherezade media to motivate them to do so in the first place.

Despite never having personally encountered such an organisation—he privately shuddered at such a prospect—he could well understand their reasons. Either they would have had to set things up themselves, or risk some over-excited journalist ruining their carefully-laid trap for the piratical band.

As he watched, the scene changed to show a close-up shot of the one known as 'Green Lantern'. The purple girl's delicate features were contorted with strain and exertion as she hauled on the cables pinning the corsairs. She was aided by the power of a ship, simplistic in form, which was also generated by the ring, dragging the hostile vessel away from the portal and pinning it in place. A pair of enforcement ships from the drift that had been a victim to the vessel for several months emerged from slipstream, launching their own cables.

At last, the ship was captured, and the screen turned to the coverage of a news conference. The First Director of Sheherezade Drift was shown greeting her guests, shaking hands with the captains of the constabulary ships and the Andromeda crewmembers.

How troublesome that particular pair had been. Perhaps not so great a threat as their hopelessly deluded leader Hunt, but a great menace nonetheless.

He sighed and idly stroked his left-foremost bone blade as he saw Captain Valentine presented with a glittering golden medallion, forcibly smiling for the benefit of the press. Had she been anyone but an enemy, he would have almost considered sympathising with her situation. Though he would happily see her tortured to death by his hand or command, he still regarded her as a capable and efficient foe who was _never_ to be underestimated.

Then there was the _other_ annoyance.

_The Green Lantern._

He liked to think of her as an opportunity rather than a problem. But there were times when even the great philosopher's writings could not inspire him to do so.

Almost five months ago, he had attempted to take Elssbett Mossadim and thus prevent the union of the Jaguar and Sabra Prides. It should have been most feasible, to the point of being almost easy. Elssbett and Hunt had managed to slip away from Andromeda, and whilst it was true that he had needed to continue the pursuit for a good half hour whilst his engineers had prepared the drones to supplant his squadron, his plan could—indeed, _should_—have succeeded.

His assault at Skee Var Ten would have succeeded if it weren't for Hunt, and certainly the flotilla he had sent to lurk on the borders of the Jaguar home system should have turned that dilapidated wreck of a cargo hauler and its passengers into wreckage no bigger than his sidearm's ammunition clips. Caught between the two formations, it should have been so very easy.

The universe, it seemed, had had other ideas that day.

He glared at the screen as the Trance Gemini, now no longer wearing her mask but regally resplendent in a Green Lantern uniform cut along similar lines to those of the High Guard, smiled innocently and graciously bowed her head as the First Managing Director hung the heavy medal about her neck, then presented her with the key to the station.

_("—a slipfighter is emerging from slipstream, sir—")_

"—_get me that cargo ship!—"_

_("—sir...the fighter's pilot is _ejecting_!")_

_**(**—**that green glow streaking across the starscape, shielding Elssbett's transport and disabling his fighters**—**)**_

"—_the Green Lantern. End your attack, or I will have no alternative than to use lethal force."_

_("—is Captain Dylan Hunt. I have your future Grand Duchess, Elssbett Mossadim, First Daughter of the Sabra Pride. We are under heavy attack from the Drago–—")_

"—_more than enough ships to deal with the Jaguar, and we can intercept you long before you reach their homeworld."_

"_Attention all Drago-Kazov ships, this is your final warning! Stand down or you _will_ be destroyed!"_

_("_—_Fleet Marshal, the Green Lantern has opened fire!")_

The battle had been a complete disaster even before the Jaguar and Sabran fleets had engaged his forces. That enigma had crippled the weapons systems on a significant number of his ships and damaged their engines, leaving several crews unable to continue the attack—or defend themselves. His forces, off-balance and scattered, had been easy prey for the Jaguars and Sabrans.

And now those Prides were united. His gaze wandered away from where Sheherezade's First Director was making a long-winded and clumsily-worded speech of gratitude to their Commonwealth allies and the well-wishing of all in general, and alighted upon the handful of flexis stacked neatly upon one corner of his desk. According to the Intelligence Corps, their fleets were gathering and their shipyards constructing at least two entire battlegroups of warships. And there could only be one possible target for an immediate military campaign of such a vast scale.

He had listened to the Corps' reports confirming the authenticity of Hunt's warnings of the approach of this 'Magog worldship', but he doubted the Jaguars and Sabrans would be preparing quite so early and certainly not with such speed. The war he had tried to prevent was indeed coming, only fiercer and more powerful than it would have been had he not attempted and failed in the removal of Elssbett. By rights, those Prides should have wiped each other out by now, or at least one line would lie in ignoble extinction and the other in tatters.

Ataturk and the others had been impressed by the reports the Corps had passed on concerning the properties of the ring that the purple girl wielded and the abilities it gave her. Khonsu, in his usual manner, had seemed calmly gracious in his reception of the compliments that had been quietly and in some cases grudgingly showered upon himself and the Corps.

Cuchulain knew the ring and its bearer far better than any of them could from mere reports. He knew what he had seen her do in battle.

He also had his own little information network. Khonsu and his Corps were useful to him, a group of fools and amateurs led by a truly woeful fool and amateur to be sure, but still undeniably useful. As _pawns_. Cuchulain preferred to rely on his own means where possible, and independent sources where these failed.

Such as was the case in this instance.

_Unfortunately._

He looked over to his office door, where his guest had no doubt been standing for at least a second and five minutes ago. "Must we always go through this same routine?" he growled.

Carmagnola Pertinax, Alpha of the Scipio Pride, smiled widely and openly as he emerged from seemingly nowhere. "Come now, my dear Fleet Marshal. You knew I was here two minutes ago—rather an error on my part I fear. Besides, you know what it is I bring with me. I had rather expected a more..._polite_...reception. A certain gladness to see me, even."

Cuchulain's rage grew, although he fought to contain it. As usual, Carmagnola was playing mind games with him. As far as he was aware, he _hadn't_ detected the renegade until just now, so Carmagnola's claim that he had indicated either that the mercenary was in error, Cuchulain had only subconsciously noticed his entrance and his visitor had noted that, or—_most_ _likely_—the bastard was just trying to addle his mind with its own natural and usually healthy paranoia.

He wasn't even going to think about the ramifications of Carmagnola, easily the most devious and cunning of Nietzscheans ever conceived, had admitted to a mistake. To do that in full would require at least a day, and as for analysing his motivation for such an admission...

"It is genuine?" he sighed, exasperated.

Carmagnola's smile grew broader, but Cuchulain refused to allow himself to be baited. The wily spy was most infuriating in how effortlessly he could manipulate the strongest and most conniving of minds, and it was something he undertook in this cavalier fashion during his audiences with all his Pride's usual clients and associates. And that was an extremely long list indeed, easily encompassing most of the higher-born and influential Nietzscheans in the Known Worlds.

"You truly doubted my word?"

Cuchulain snorted. "The last person to accept your word—for his personal safety, I believe it was—ended up dead eight months ago. Slain by your hand, along with his wives and all who bore his lineage."

The muscular mercenary chuckled lightly, shaking his head and running a hand through his veritable mane of gleaming golden-blonde hair as he drew up a seat and planted his booted feet arrogantly on Cuchulain's desk. "Ah, yes. Dionysus. What can I say: he was a..._most_ inconvenient individual."

"He was the second son of the old Arch-Duke of the Jaguar Pride and one of the finest generals and greatest warriors that the entire Nietzschean species has ever produced." Cuchulain glared pointedly at the black leather boots. His guest seemed to ignore him, but Cuchulain knew him far better than that. "Brother to the _current_ Arch-Duke."

Carmagnola shrugged, sitting back lazily in the chair and placing his hands behind his head, bone blades out of sight as usual beneath the impossibly narrow sleeves of his black leather jacket. "I'm intrigued, Cuchulain. How do you know that it was indeed I to whom the honour fell of being known as the man who removed such a magnificent breeding specimen from the Jaguars' gene pool? Another agent in my Pride, perhaps? Or has that infertile fop Khonsu been bandying wicked lies about me?"

It was the Dragan's turn now to smile. The Scipio Pride was not, strictly speaking, a true Nietzschean Pride in the proper meaning of the phrase. Rather, they were a band of renegades gathered from a considerable multitude of Prides. Outcasts, wanderers and exiles all, the Scipio Pride only accepted the very finest and greatest and most cunning specimens their race had to offer. And the infiltration of their ranks was quite simply impossible.

It wasn't enough to be Prideless. The Scipions had to take a direct interest in a particular individual, extensively investigating their personal history, the worthiness of their genetic lineage and perhaps most importantly the extent of their abilities. Thus it was that this mercenary Pride maintained only the very finest of standards amongst an entire race engineered to be perfect.

"I thought you knew me better than to try something like that," he said in mock-admonishment. "And whilst I believe you may be correct in your assessment of Khonsu's personal problems, he knows better than to discuss one such as yourself so openly."

Even as the words left his lips, Cuchulain knew he had committed a serious error.

Carmagnola grinned, pearly teeth glittering, the ever-so-slightly elongated eyeteeth gleaming in a fashion that even Cuchulain found to be disturbing. "So he hasn't managed to conceal our business. How very disappointing."

Cuchulain knew had made a truly grievous mistake. He had revealed that he knew about Carmagnola selling information to Khonsu. He had revealed information he possessed about the secretive mercenary _himself_, not just his Pride. He successfully fought down the urge to breathe an extra breath per minute faster, determined not to be drawn further

Carmagnola succeeded in doing so anyway. "Don't allow yourself to be so easily flustered Cuchulain. It is most unbecoming for you. Besides, I know about the sensor nanobots in his office, residence and private chambers. If it makes you feel any more comfortable, it was one of my operatives who made arrangements to ensure that they remained undetected."

The Fleet Marshal was knocked sideways by the claim, although he fought not to show it. Carmagnola was renowned for his technique of concealing duplicity within a truth and a further truth within the duplicity. But if he was telling the _full_ truth...

If this slippery bastard viper was indeed telling the complete truth, it was for some specific, carefully pre-ordained purpose that could serve only to benefit him and perhaps another who had hired his services, a purpose that Cuchulain knew from long experience that he would never see or comprehend until too late—if then. And even that was hardly a certainty: the renegade seemed to revel in chaos and intrigue, the more complex the conspiracies the more he was in his element.

Indeed, three mid-ranking Prides had been wiped out in the past decade in wars and civil strife that Cuchulain believed—with good reason—Carmagnola to have initiated for no apparent reason. An investigation instituted at Cuchulain's behest had revealed a possibility that he had perpetuated such acts merely for his own amusement.

It was a possibility he could well believe.

The mercenary continued without hesitating, apparently ignoring his customer's discomfort. "To answer your earlier question, the data is _quite_ genuine my dear chap. And before you ask, it is possible to have it authenticated. In other words, it is completely perfect and integrally sounder than even your little rival Hunt."

Cuchulain leaned forward and stared coldly at him, stung. He was angered at how this individual had dared manipulate him, and angrier still that he had allowed himself to be controlled so effortlessly. But worst of all was _that_ name.

The mercenary chuckled, spreading his hands wide. "I thought you might be a little more pleased with it. Honestly, I do have other things to be doing with my time."

"I'd appreciate actually _having_ the recording first," Cuchulain ground out.

Carmagnola shook his head in a condescending manner, eyes flickering toward the desk between them.

A new flexi lay beside the stack of reports

Cuchulain cautiously picked it up, pausing the screen and playing the flexi's recording before examining the other information it contained. He nodded in satisfaction at its contents and returned his gaze to his guest. "I believe you said you wanted a...'most singular imbursement' for this?"

A golden eyebrow arose, diamantine-hard blue eyes sparkling in a disarming manner, concealing the menace that Cuchulain knew surely lurked beyond them. "Those were my exact words, yes."

"Well?" Cuchulain was quite frankly prepared to give him anything for this document—anything that wasn't rightfully his at any rate.

"Ravenna Castile."

The Fleet Marshal cocked his head to one side. "The First Daughter of Captain Anjou's House."

Carmagnola nodded, a curt and inexplicably graceful motion. "The very same."

Cuchulain blinked. "Why?"

The other grinned widely. "I might ask you your intentions regarding that recording, but I haven't. I am satisfied with drawing my own conclusions—adds a little challenge, makes things a bit more sporting, don't you agree?"

The Fleet Marshal conceded the point. "She is of excellent lineage. I can imagine that any offspring the two of you were to conceive would be possessed of an extraordinarily fine quality set of genes and from what I have heard she is most receptive to such a union. However, I don't see what I can do. Commodus has, I believe, set his mind upon the matter already."

His guest shrugged. "You'll have a full-scale war on your hands with the Sabra-Jaguar pride within six months according to your vaunted Intelligence Corps' estimates. His ship is operating near their borders. I should have thought it to be a relatively simple matter for you to arrange for the vessel to be assigned to a stealth reconnaissance operation for a month or so. That's all the time we shall require. Besides, such a mission could prove to be an advantage for you and your Pride."

Cuchulain sat back, nonchalantly stroking his neatly-trimmed beard as he considered the proposition. Commodus Anjou was, overtly, one of his most loyal supporters and was certainly a fine and capable captain. He would ensure that his ship returned and his crew survived, always a valuable achievement for political purposes, and he would most likely obtain information that would prove valuable when the war came to fruition.

When he arrived to find his daughter gone and wed to the Alpha of Scipio Pride, he would suspect Cuchulain's involvement, even his reasoning. And Commodus would be far from a minor inconvenience.

However, the man was in actuality far from Cuchulain's most fervent of supporters. They had clashed several times already, the younger Nietzschean erroneously letting slip that he had designs upon Cuchulain's position, and in truth the Fleet Marshal had recently considered acting against him or even arranging his removal. And even with Ravenna joined with Carmagnola, he had been considering offering a proposal of his own to either her or her sister Aphrodite. Such an action would surely soften the blow.

At length, he nodded to the other Nietzschean. "A pleasure doing business with you and the Scipio Pride."

"No," the mercenary laughed as he stood in a single fluidic motion, "I assure you that the pleasure is _entirely_ mine.

Cuchulain smiled tightly to himself as the mercenary left. This recording was exactly what he needed. A little piece of the puzzle he was building, the weapons he was preparing.

He was quite honestly rather relieved that Carmagnola had left. He knew that the other had not been using a mere figure of speech in their parting, and this further added to the disconcerting feeling that even now, the mercenary manipulated him in his words, thoughts and deeds. He also knew that he would be foolish indeed to fail to send Anjou on the mission now.

A thought occurred to him: what if that had been Carmagnola's objective all along? For Anjou's ship to undertake the mission. Not to distract its captain from his daughter, but for the information the mission would undoubtedly yield, information that only Anjou could obtain? For Carmagnola's currency of choice, indeed the very substance that he regarded—or at least _claimed_ he regarded, Cuchulain admonished himself—information as true wealth.

He stared at the flexi, played the recording again. Trying to fathom out that one was impossible. He disliked the fact immensely, but he was most pleased with the recording, of this there was no mistake.

His operation would succeed. And now, even if it didn't, he now had back-up plans to prepare.

=============================================================

..._energy blasts poured into the Broken Hammer, pitching Gorejon and another to the floor. As the others dove for cover, Saphia was left alone, exposed to the incoming fire..._

_She knew what she had to do. She had seen it scant minutes ago, and it pained her to know the loss she was to suffer if they were to have any chance of reaching a perfect possible future._

_In the end she made it willingly, leaping toward the bartender, knowing her true identity all along. They collided—_

—_she shrieked in pain as the energy blast tore into her body, and she rolled from Saphia, writhing and sobbing in unspeakable agony as she knew that it was forever gone. Her tears fell upon the dirt-choked floor, slowly mingling with her blood as her heart bled its pain and anguish out into the world._

_Her tail, her beautiful, elegant and faithful tail, had been severed._

Trance awoke, wide-eyed and sweating copiously, and screamed in fear and remembered pain as she sat bolt upright in her bed.

Frantic, she kicked off her duvet, frenetically patting herself down, smiling as she stared down at her body and sagging in relief at the sight of her tail. Attached, healthy and strong as ever.

She arose and padded over to where she had hidden the power ring—_both_ power rings, she reminded herself, as she finally emerged from her sleep-fogged haze. Rommie had left hers behind whilst she was on the mission.

She breathed in deeply, calming herself and banishing the last of her fears as she took out her ring, the ring that Kyle had given her. The mission to locate Isabella Ortiz had gone very differently from..._that._

She shivered at the memory of the dream, and knew it to be far more. It was not what had come to pass. It had, however, been something that _could have been._

She was so very glad that it had not.

She wrapped her tail about her shoulders as she sat upon her bed, hugging herself. She remembered what had happened; how she had fought to seal the windows whilst Dylan had organised the bar's patrons in building barricades, how she had shielded Tyr when he had returned from destroying the Kalderan mortars.

The near..._awe_ that had been so very palpable within the bar when Gorejon had fired on them and she had blocked the shot, a Green Lantern uniform replacing her usual clothes. An awe that had been mixed with a tinge of fear that had worried her.

Too, she remembered her only failure. Her failure to save Cory when Janis had given in to her terror. The only life that she had protected and lost that terrible night.

She stared at the ring. It looked so very small indeed in her hands. And yet it had laid such a great legacy upon her...it was more than she could bear sometimes.

She had worked from the shadows so many times before. There were things she had done to make the universe a better and safer place that even she sometimes found hard to believe, so incredible and unlikely they had been. But this...

This was so very different.

She reached up to her shoulder and wrapped the end of her tail about her hand as she stared intently at the little ring. So small...so powerful.

So dangerously disruptive.

Things had changed a great deal, she knew. Not only in the obvious ways... something had radically changed in the timestream's flow. She could _feel_ it, almost smell it.

She didn't know whether the change was for the better or the worse, though, and this unsettled Trance greatly. She hoped it was for the better, but a part of her felt it was surely for ill.

For what if she failed? Truly failed to live up to the legacy, to save lives? On Pythia, she had lost not one life that she had taken into her care, with her medical skills or with her ring.

On the Magog worldship, she and Rommie had successfully recovered Tyr, Harper and Rev. Although Harper was still infested with Magog larvae, he was alive and had a chance of survival. She had fought the creature Rev had called 'The Spirit of the Abyss' and lived to tell the tale.

On Sporog's Anvil, she had tasted defeat. Cory had died despite her best efforts. Despite all her power, all her skill, Cory had _still_ died. And she could not bring her back, wish though she might.

She thought of Hal Jordan, of what Kyle had told her of him. How he had actually met Jordan during a time travel accident, how he had once been before he was Parallax. And how he had ended.

She felt she understood Hal Jordan now. His intentions, his wishes had truly been only the very best and finest. And she understood better than most the importance of having good intentions.

But his actions had been deplorable. The destruction of a universe was something she could not agree with. Intentions, though important, couldn't excuse everything.

No longer would she fail. Never again would a life under her protection be lost.

=============================================================

Valdor Druss was a most unhappy man, and with good cause to be so.

He tried to avoid cringing as the burly Nietzschean idly flexed his viciously-curved bone blades. "Look, all I know is what the danged Dragans been asking, get me? I don't know squat firsthand."

"So what _exactly_ have they been asking?" The Nietzschean flicked out a blade, idly cleaning a fingernail with it.

"They find out I been talkin' to you, I'm plain dead, know what I mean?"

"I see," the Nietzschean drawled, relaxing as the blade vanished. Druss swallowed, nodded in relief.

Within a second a large, powerful hand was about his throat and he had been slammed bodily against the wall of the booth. He stared into a pair of hazel brown eyes, truly beguiling in the innocence they exuded. He stared deeper, and trembled at what he saw.

"What makes you think you aren't dead if you don't talk to me?" the Nietzschean whispered. "Hmmm? Now, the Dragans aren't here at the moment...but I most certainly am. And I doubt they're that interested in _you_, my friend, unless you give them information. Now," the Castalian air-breather's throat was released, "you _will_ co-operate one way or another. And it's not just me that you have to worry about."

"Wh-what do you mean?" Druss immediately regretted having asked the question, a regret that was to prove most justified.

"You see that woman at the bar? Black leather trenchcoat, black hair, slender."

Druss nodded, rubbing at his bruised gullet.

"Take a good look at her left hand."

Druss groaned as he saw it. A green ring, with a familiar symbol embossed upon it.

"That's right. A Green Lantern. And you'd know all about them, I suppose?"

"Ah...well, more than most others in the biz, yeah?"

"That one's different. You see, she killed the bearer of that ring. And those weapons are possessed of a limited sentience—sufficiently extensive to know a vicious killer when it encounters one. And if you don't tell _me_ everything I wish to know, why, I'll just let her ask the questions instead. And believe me when I say she is more than capable and willing to tear your DNA apart atom by atom right here and right now. So, which of us is it to be?"

Druss smiled a sickly little grin. "The Dragans wanted what ev'rybody else who comes to me wants—information. Now there's plenty of brokers 'round here, but I got a rep f'r havin' antiques, y'know what I mean? Anyway, they come in here, arrogant as hell 'n' larger 'n' life, askin' 'bout this weird old High Guard base. Now, gen about the Commonwealth, we's talkin' a real valuable commodity there, 'cos it's harder'n' hell to get. But they wanted stuff about just this base—they called it the 'Eagle's Eyrie'. They didn't say much more than that, just asked if I'd heard of it. Now they were offering _five thousand million_ Dragan Eagles for anything about this place—if I had that sorta thing in stock, I'd've cashed in, but I didn't so I didn't, you follow?"

The Nietzschean didn't so much as blink. "Continue."

Druss licked his thin, ragged lips nervously. "Thing I do know is that they went to this other guy I sometimes employ, a _damn_ good data hunter—the guy's dataport is way ahead of its time, he's tinkered with it so much. Now _he_ reckoned that this Eagle's Eyrie or whatever was some _really_ important facility by the way they were talkin' about it to him. He thought it might've been secret even in the days of the old Commonwealth—a _long_ way from a tourist resort."

"And who and where might I find this..._acquaintance_...of yours?"

Druss shrugged and smiled honestly. "I could tell ya, but it wouldn't do you any good. The guy's dead—Flash-fried himself. I tried to tell him but would the bastard listen? 'Course not. That's Perseids for you. Turned out he was in debt with this Chichin, Thelx—and I mean _real_ deep, yeah? So Thelx went and took whatever he could get from the guy's place. You can't get anything from there even."

"Hmm. So I have to wonder...what other reasons do you have for telling me this?"

"Now look, I got something that might, only _might_ be of some use to you, 'kay? I dunno if there's anything useful in it, and you'd need an AI or someone with a 'port to check. And 'fore you start getting all interested, I'm telling you right now I'm gonna want some actual _payment_ for it, not just threats, yeah? I'm talkin' _cash_ here. You got some of that?"

The Nietzschean nodded slightly. "I may. Go on."

Druss reached into a pouch that hung at his waist. "Thing is, Vaern—the Perseid—he left me this in his will, see? Anyway, here it is."

He drew out a shining, conical silver spike.

"His dataport." The Nietzschean looked impassive as ever, but Druss knew he had to be a _little_ impressed.

"This thing contains a copy of everything that was ever inside his head. Trouble is getting into it—like I said, you need an A.I. or someone with a 'port."

"I see," the Nietzschean raised an eyebrow.

"Look, I don't want to start hagglin' with ya, so let's call it a thousand thrones huh? One of these brand new's worth a lot more'n that, but if you want it, that's the price. It's cheap," he added hopefully. The faster this Nietzschean left, the more of his regular customers he might still have by the end of today.

"One other thing; did they say anything else to you?"

Druss shrugged. "Only where ta go if I found any information they wanted—this old High Guard base they took over way back when. Acheron. I mean, _c'mon_, when the hell'm I gonna get the time to traipse all the way to _Acheron? In my busy season?_ Yeah, right!"

=============================================================

"Anything?" Rommie asked as Tyr emerged from the booth.

"Could you read this?" He handed her a dataport.

She grimaced slightly. "I believe so. I take it you know that this has been _torn_ out of someone's neck?"

He merely blinked at her. "That's the last of them for now. Let's get out of this ..._place_ before the stench gets any worse."

"Yeah...tell me, was this," here she flicked her left hand up at him, letting the light catch her ring for a second, "actually useful?"

He grinned, flashing his pearly white teeth at her. "If they're watching the green jewellery, they aren't looking at your force lances. And the fake is very useful, I feel, for intimidation purposes. We wouldn't have this otherwise," he nodded toward the dataport in her grasp.

=============================================================

"The Eagle's Eyrie?! You're sure?"

Tyr had seen Dylan Hunt in a variety of moods. Remorse, joy, depression, lust, anger. This one, however, was new. A blend of excitement and fear. A most unusual combination.

"That is what my contact told me," he calmly confirmed.

"Several mentions are also made to this base in the Perseid's dataport," Rommie added. "All of them in conjunction with inquiries made by members of the Drago-Kazov Pride, and in several cases there are links to Acheron as well."

"I'll be damned," Dylan chuckled, throwing his head back almost insanely as he paced Command. "They're _still_ looking for the Eagles after all this time!"

"Okay, care to let the rest of us in on the joke, or is this a private thing?" Beka asked, lounging against the piloting console.

Dylan sobered a little and stopped pacing, a wild glint still shining in his eyes. "There was, ah, this special division of Argosy Special Operations. They were called 'The Eagles', they were the very best the High Guard had to offer. They came from all sorts of units and every profession in the Guard—Lancers, pilots, agents, physicians, scientists of all kinds, engineers, several warships. They were a sort of 'Inner Circle', an elite cadre within Argosy Intelligence. The Eagle's Eyrie..."

"...was their base," Tyr finished.

The High Guard officer nodded. "A base that few people within and without the ranks of the Eagles ever knew the location of—in fact, only a very few personnel were aware of the Eagles' existence. Even the Vedran Empress knew only a little about them."

"So how come you know all about 'em boss?" Harper asked.

Dylan smiled, a hint of pride flickering in the corners of his lips. "Before I was seconded to Admiral Stark's team, I served among the Eagles' ranks. Before I was transferred, I was one of their best agents. Now, if the Drago-Kazov Pride are searching for the Eyrie, it could still be intact. I mean, a complete High Guard base!"

"Not to dampen your merriments Captain, but I seem to recall similar comments being made about GS92196, albeit with slightly less exuberance." Tyr bluntly stated.

Dylan waved the comment away. "Even if it's a wreck, the place was huge—weapons vaults, hospital wings, supply depots, labs, a full dry-dock facility. The Eyrie was a constant source of new battlefield technology that was centuries ahead of its time. _Some_ of it should be left over."

"In its day it was centuries ahead of its time," the Nietzschean once again countered. "It may have been destroyed years ago _without_ the knowledge of the Dragans. And do you know its location? Hmm? Because if not, the only way we could ever find this...High Guard Holy Grail...is by paying a little visit to Acheron."

"Tyr, I _do_ know where to find the Eyrie. What I'm worried about is if the Dragans find its location. Besides, High Guard Station Acheron was one of the Commonwealth's finest feats of engineering. One of the greatest fortresses ever constructed," Dylan protested.

"Indeed it was. Now it has been modified, upgraded. Its missile batteries are controlled by Drago-Kazov gunners."

Dylan merely smiled at this. "And what makes you think I was proposing a conventional frontal assault and confiscate their information by brute force, Mr. Anasazi? Have a little faith in my abilities."

Tyr shook his head. "Faith," he spat the word in disgust. "I prefer plans that do not require faith to succeed."

"Then you're going to love this," Dylan grinned, turning to look at Rommie and Trance.

=============================================================

_Beyond space..._

_Beyond time..._

_He_ watched...

Shrouded within his green robes, he gazed across the gulfs of existence.

He turned, confused, as he sensed something he had never expected to encounter here.

_The presence of another._

It was, to say the least, a most unsettling sensation for him.

"How are you here?"

The other shrugged, a playful smile dancing about his shadowed lips. "Trust me, it doesn't matter. What matters is you."

"I am here because I am dead and this is what I have become. You, on the other hand, I sense to be very much alive." He turned, throwing back the hood of his robe. "It is impossible for the living to come here."

Another shrug; a still-broader smile. "Impossible is what I do. There's someone I know who told me that we needed to talk. I don't know about me, but you most certainly need a decent conversation about all this...Hal. Or do you prefer Parallax?"

The dead Hal Jordan sighed. "My old name will suffice."

"You're worried about him, aren't you? He hasn't left life yet and you're _still_ worried about him being corrupted. Have some confidence in him."

Hal slowly shook his head. "I wish I could. Unfortunately, humans have a habit of being corrupted by such power."

"He's dead! He may not have left life, but he's still _dead_. He has no power save for his knowledge, and from what I've seen he's put that to excellent use in training his successor."

Hal glared at his visitor. "I don't know all that much about you, but I'd still appreciate knowing _why._ Why you caused this. Why you guided her to the _Andromeda_ all those years ago. Why you brought the ring there when it belonged on Earth."

"As you said yourself, humans have a habit of being corrupted by such power."

"And Gemini?"

The other smiled sadly. "She is my successor also. In this timestream and in many others in which she did not encounter the ring, she has been heir to _my_ legacy. She is the one to defeat that which I cannot; the one foe against which I would surely fail. I learned that the ring was needed in this universe, and believed—as your ring also believed—that she was the one best-suited to wield it. And in this I have thus far been justified in my actions."

Hal stared at him thoughtfully. Somehow...he felt a kinship of sorts with this Englishman. "So far so good," he agreed.

The other nodded. "Indeed. And now a new player awaits in the wings, the time and cue fast approaching for new boots to tread the stage."

Hal frowned. "Who? I sense no-one..."

"This isn't even your universe. You have no authority there, so you are blinded to its future for it is beyond your sight. But the individual approaches their time and place of emergence even as we speak."

"Just who _are_ you? What is your name? And why do you shroud yourself in shadows?"

A smile met his questions. "Identity, Hal Jordan, is a valuable thing indeed. And once revealed, it can never be hidden again. I once was to reality what Trance now _is_. What she _will become_."

"But how—"

"So many questions! So many answers I can ill afford to give." The other sighed. "I have many enemies, enemies capable of overcoming one such as yourself with ease, Hal Jordan. Even as powerful as you now are, believe me when I say that you _are_ vulnerable to them. If I were to tell you, they would sense the information and seek it. You would be destroyed even as they tore it from your mind. I leave you without knowledge for your _protection._"

"Does Trance know?"

A nod. "She can guard such knowledge quite safely. Indeed, she has done so with far more volatile information than my own for an extremely long time.

"And now, I must go."

Hal stared at the emptiness for quite some time. Finally, he turned his gaze back, back to the unfolding drama.

=============================================================

=============================================================

=============================================================


	5. A Search Begins

**CHAPTER FIVE:**

**A SEARCH BEGINS**

_"The universe hates you._

_Deal with it."_

—The World According To Seamus Harper, Chapter 12 Paragraph 8 Verse 3

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Tyr raised a dubious eyebrow as Trance landed, releasing the rope-crawler device as she landed nimbly on the other side of the canyon. "Now what?"

"You have to admit, that was actually fun," she admitted, lips twitching into a broad grin.

"Fun, she says," he muttered. It would have been easier if she'd used her ring, but the energy would have led to their detection. Hence, the hard way.

Dylan smiled to himself, tapping controls on his wrist monitor. "Voila. A complete map of the mountain and the fortress, right down to the last chamber and the last cavern, courtesy of the Argosy Corps of Engineers. Welcome to High Guard Station Acheron."

Tyr snorted as Dylan led them off. "What USED to be High Guard Station Acheron. If it's any consolation, the Nietzschean alliance lost fifty ships and three mobile infantry divisions taking this rock from the Commonwealth."

"Guess it's lucky they didn't expect the High Guard to come back," Trance pointed out.

"Not an irrational assumption, considering my people destroyed them utterly."

Dylan glanced at him. "Are you bragging or complaining?"

Tyr shrugged. "Observing."

Dylan shook his head. "It looks like our best way in is just around..."

He broke off as they found a doorway in the cliff-side, covered with a steel grating. Dylan grunted. "Oh-kay, this could be a problem." He checked his wrist monitor again, noting the readouts it displayed. "Automated defence systems. Large-bore gauss guns with hyperspectral sensors and fullerene plating. The ECM generators in the weave of our field uniforms should mask us at range."

"But if we get too close, they'll detect us," Tyr pointed out.

Dylan sighed. "Yeah. One way or another, we'll have to neutralise them."

"Find another route?" Tyr suggested. "They may have missed a tunnel or two."

Trance's ring flashed against her black gloves, and a screen appeared. On it, they could see a Drago-Kazov soldier, his face stern. "Security Squad Two, be advised. We are implementing a Kessel-Krieg Alert status. Command and Control Centre out."

Dylan stared thoughtfully at the grille. "They know we're here."

Tyr nodded in agreement. "We should fall back—formulate a contingency plan."

Dylan shot a sidelong look at Trance. "Remove that grille please?"

She winked at him as a tendril of energy shone forth from the ring. Silver droplets pattered to the ground as the grille melted, and the beam continued shining onwards, deep into the tunnel. Somewhere in the distance, a faint explosion could be heard.

Dylan jerked his thumb toward the destroyed entrance. "Here's my contingency plan: we're going in. Trance, signal the others to get ready. Any questions?"

So saying, he charged the doorway firing on the run, not giving Tyr a chance to answer.

He shook his head in mild disbelief as Trance sprinted after him. "Not now."

=============================================================

"I've just received a signal from Trance. Dylan wants us to stand by for the assault and recovery phase," Rommie announced, her power ring sparking briefly.

"All right," Beka grinned cockily, flexing her hands where they rested upon the piloting controls. "You'd best get to an airlock."

Rommie nodded as she left Command.

Harper sighed, and Beka turned to him. "You okay shorty?"

"Don't worry— I never thought I'd say this but _man_ Rommie's even _hotter_ with that ring."

She chuckled and shook her head as she turned back to the viewscreen. "Just make sure you can do your job when things get busy."

"Hell, I just hope they stay busy even after we've taken out the Drago-Jerkoffs," he grinned. Beka winced inwardly, knowing all too well the dread paths his mind was straying towards.

=============================================================

"It is done?"

Carmagnola smiled easily as he slipped from the cavern's considerable shadows. "Cuchulain has the information. And my observers tell me that he seems to have made the preparations we anticipated."

The robed figure seemed pleased by this. "Tell me...what is your personal opinion? How do you believe things will turn out?"

The blonde Nietzschean shrugged nonchalantly. "Nothing is guaranteed in this universe. But in this case a success is assured."

The figure took a step forward, seeming to pass through the cave's shadows much as another shadow might. "Are you playing games with me?" it asked softly.

Carmagnola sighed. "I thought you knew by now that everything in this existence is a game of sorts. Of strategy, of resources, of skill. However," he grinned wickedly at the robed figure's apparent discomfort, "I am not toying with you...yet."

"I strongly advise you never to do so," the figure growled. "It would be ...most _ill advised_ for you to undertake such foolery."

"Oh really? Well, much as I appreciate your concern," he laughed, "believe me when I say that you are in no position to make threats or demands of me."

A golden creature appeared, walking through a solid rock wall. Gangly and slender, it carried a pair of daggers loosely at its sides. "Is that so?" the robed figure asked as the creature advanced.

There came a faint hiss as a splinter of metal shot from Carmagnola's sleeve. The shard tore into the creature, which exploded as though a tornado had struck a sculpture formed of sand, screaming in agony as it dissipated.

A black leather jacket fluttered to the ground as Carmagnola sprang forwards, bone blades erect. His first blow slashed through the robes as the hood fell back, revealing a bald, ebony-complexioned woman, her features fair indeed.

She lashed out, seeking to pluck out his heart—

She slumped, flickering between dimensions as she bled out from the wound in her gut.

Carmagnola snorted in disgust as the guise of a human woman fell away from the creature as it died.

Just as all the others he had encountered had died.

He studied the fingernails on his right hand as he recovered the jacket, studiously ignoring the dead minion as she vanished an atom at a time. He was most pleased with this little modification, if truth be told—always a rare substance around the devious mercenary. His thoughts dwelt in satisfaction upon the knowledge that his offspring would also benefit from this latest of genetic modifications he had developed, passing them on to the Nietzschean race over the coming generations.

He only regretted that his predecessor had failed to survive long enough to make a similar contribution to the betterment of the universe.

The creatures' employer would by now know the information he had imparted, and he doubted it would mourn their loss. A most interesting pawn it made for, he felt. A true challenge for his considerable talents. And most entertaining to manipulate...

=============================================================

Things were going well.

Tyr would have said they were going _too_ well.

Automated gun turrets, a formidable tactical obstacle at the best of times, had been swiftly destroyed by Trance, clearing their way. Harper's data extraction device had worked perfectly, supplying them with more up-to-date schematics of what had been High Guard Station Acheron.

And they had just transferred missile control to Dylan's wrist monitor.

_Far_ too easy.

They came to a halt upon finding a squat, heavy blast door on their route to the fortress' computer core. A blast door that wasn't on the new schematics.

Dylan inserted an old device of his—a lock breaker from his Argosy Special Operations days—and the door promptly clicked unlocked.

"Huh. That was easy." It seemed the High Guard captain shared his sentiment.

"Very," Trance agreed, shifting uncomfortably.

Dylan opened the door, and found nothing but a metal wall on the other side. It seemed, he mused as he closed the door again, that his instincts were correct. "Trap," he simply stated.

"Really?" Tyr asked, nonplussed

_Unnoticed, a faint whine began to sound, too highly pitched for the human ear to detect._

"Yeah."

He shrugged. "Their mistake."

"Yep," Dylan agreed.

Trance shook her head, trying to clear the headache that assailed her mind. Shields...she had to form shields, channel the Nietzscheans...into...kill-zone...

She collapsed to the floor, brown eyes bulging as her stomach heaved. She fought the urge with all her might, tried to suppress it—

—and then she succumbed, her last meal flooding from her lips, gushing from her gorge. She hawked and spat bile, and then was driven to her knees once more as a fresh torrent tore its way from her.

Far away, she could hear something...voices. Weapons firing...

She blacked out.

=============================================================

Cuchulain grinned to himself as he watched the unfolding drama on his palm screen. The troops being sent in were guaranteed to be killed, but this was of no concern to him. They were sterile fools, every one of them, with everything to prove and gain and nothing to lose. Also, their loss would cause no grief among their families. Indeed, some would most likely be relieved that their embarrassing relatives had met their ends at last.

The weapon _worked._ The girl lay there, sprawled out cold in a puddle of her own regurgitated half-digested food, vulnerable whilst her companions massacred his expendable cannon fodder.

A light flashed in the corner of the screen, and his smile broadened still further. Phase two was ready.

=============================================================

Smoke rose from force lance and gauss rifle alike, mingling with the steam from the injuries blasted in the bodies of the Drago-Kazov troops.

Dylan crouched beside Trance, now thankfully unconscious, and rolled her from the pool of her vomit, gently wiping a smear from her face.

"Any ideas?" he looked up at Tyr.

The other shrugged. "We'll have to carry her, but I haven't the first clue as to what did this. She's shown no signs of being ill recently, but with such an alien physiology I couldn't honestly say for certain that she is healthy for one of her kind."

"Rayner," Dylan realised. "He might know."

"Correct me if I'm wrong my captain, but I believe he happens to be dead. His advice pertaining to survival may be somewhat..._limited_ in its worth."

"Yeah, and the Drago-Kazov have a weapon that can take down a Green Lantern, and not just any Lantern but Trance. Do you really want to stake your survival on that possibility?" Dylan shot back as he grasped Trance's left hand. "Come on Kyle, we need you."

An emerald outline formed, its light projected from the ring. Swiftly, it became recognisable as Trance's predecessor, dressed in casual clothing native to his time period. "Captain Hunt!" he greeted them. "Is the mission over—no, I'm guessing not," he hastily halted the question as he took in the unfamiliar surroundings. "Ah," he winced as he crouched over Trance's still form. "Nasty."

"Any idea what did this?" Dylan asked. "We don't have much time, we need to get moving."

"Sonic weapon broadcasting high-frequency microwaves, disrupting her inner ear functions and therefore her thought processes," Kyle swiftly replied. "Got hit with one of these a few years back—well, from my perspective. I'll tell you about it sometime."

"I think we'd all enjoy that, but for now how do we counter it? And why aren't Tyr or I affected?"

The emerald spectre shook his head. "We never found a countermeasure, not before I left anyway. Getting her out of the weapon's range or destroying it would do the trick, but if retreat's not an option and you don't know where to find the weapon..." he spread his hands in defeat as he trailed off.

"Just perfect," Tyr sighed in exasperation.

"As for you two, I don't know. If these...'Drago-Kazov', right? If they had a device capable of targeting Trance alone, tracking her position..."

"Like a sniper rifle?" Tyr suggested.

The dead man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Yeah..._possibly._ They'd need a way of locking onto the exact position of Trance, the ring or both though. Alternatively..."

He peered closely at Trance, inclining his head to one side. "Maybe...maybe she hears differently from humans? Her ears are shaped differently, so she might be susceptible to different frequencies or something...? Hell, you'd need to speak to Ray Palmer or someone and he's in another universe so..." He groaned, running his fingers through his tousled hair. "Sorry, best I can do guys."

Dylan gently slung her over his shoulder as they headed off once more. "Great," he growled. "This mission gets better and better."

"The whole fortress has been prepared for our arrival and they've developed a weapon to incapacitate the bearer of our most powerful weapon. Hardly ideal conditions, but I've worked in worse," Tyr observed, hefting his rifle.

"Really?" Dylan looked at him hopefully.

The brawny Nietzschean cocked his head to one side, conceding the point. "I'll admit, in each case I was the only member of my team to survive and all the others were either killed or captured and suffered most unpleasant deaths."

"I've got an idea."

The statement came out of nowhere.

Dylan turned to face Kyle, staring in confusion at the dead man. "I thought you said you didn't know a way to counter this."

"I don't. What I do know is how to take out whatever's causing this. If you or Tyr tried using the ring, all they'd have to do is target you guys instead—if they can generate multiple frequencies simultaneously, all three of you will be out for the count. But if you have a ringbearer who doesn't _have_ a physical inner ear to get messed up..."

"You want the ring back," Dylan realised.

Kyle shook his head. "I'm dead, remember? I wouldn't be able to retain physical form long enough. My time as Green Lantern ended when I died, Captain Hunt. And at the risk of sounding arrogant, I've got nothing to prove in any case. Besides," and here he grinned knowingly, "Trance told me the plan, and I think we could pull this off with a slight modification to it."

Dylan grinned wildly at him. "Enlighten me?"

Kyle told him.

Dylan stopped dead in his tracks, and nodded. Tyr nodded, intrigued, as Dylan carefully lay Trance down on the floor and Kyle placed his hand over the power ring.

=============================================================

"The signal has been received; we have a go," Andromeda announced from the screen.

"Alla-righty. Moving out," Beka grinned as she took them into slipstream.

"Beka, there's been a slight change of plans," Andromeda informed them, a serious expression clouding her hologram's features.

"Define 'slight'," she asked, focussing on the slipstream.

"Trance is down, disabled by a sonic weapon assault. She's unconscious but otherwise fine. However, I—my avatar—am going to be needed on the ground if the mission is to succeed so you won't have a power ring for cover fire. Kyle assures me that Dylan has control of the missile batteries, so hopefully Dylan can fill in."

"Just _great_," Beka winced as they exited the slipstream.

=============================================================

An airlock slid silently open and she powered out and away. Glittering explosions limned the star-flecked night of space as a squadron of Drago-Kazov cruisers emerged from cover, engaging Andromeda at range, their attendant fighters swarming the mighty vessel.

Alone, Andromeda would most surely have taken plentiful amounts of damage.

But she was not alone.

A Drago-Kazov fighter pilot, dodging fire from the warship's defensive batteries, was most surprised to see her through his cockpit canopy. So surprised was he, that in the half-second it took her to neatly skewer the fuel tanks of the attack craft, he had barely come to terms with what he had seen.

A human woman, flying in space.

Rommie turned and sped into Acheron's atmosphere even as the fighter erupted in flames, even as fresh detonations blossomed along the flanks and prows of the Dragan cruisers. Dylan, it seemed, had excellent control over the missile batteries.

=============================================================

Cuchulain snarled under his breath as he led a platoon toward the intruders' location. Although he had back-up plans that could be implemented, he still hated having to lose even temporarily to this High Guard antique and his band of delinquents. He shut off the palm screen, blotting out the view of his squadron being decimated by the missile batteries and the avatar's approach.

He had planned to deal with her and her ring, of course. Just not so early on in the hostilities. He did so hate it when events were out of his control, even only slightly.

Fortunately, of the two ringbearers she was the one he feared the least. According to Carmagnola's data, the rings were powered by will and controlled by imagination—the latter being something that A.I.'s lacked. As an avatar, she was doubtless a most powerful foe in combat, but as a Green Lantern? No, as a Lantern the purple one was decidedly more creative—and more dangerous.

=============================================================

Dylan grimaced as he desperately tapped commands into his wrist monitor, feeding targeting data to the missile batteries.

High above them, between Andromeda and the missile batteries, the Dragan squadron was being massacred. Three cruisers had limped from the battlefield having sustained punishing amounts of damage and an expanding cloud of debris marked the final resting place of two others. The fighters were taking heavy casualties as well.

Down here, everything was going all the way to Canto Thirty-Four of Dant's _Inferno._ Indeed, he would have been most unsurprised to encounter Cocytus and his captives—Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius—before the day was out.

Sheltered as poorly as they were in a small corridor recess, Tyr was gamely picking off Dragan troops as best he could, Kyle aiding him in providing diversions. Once again, a flurry of gauss rounds tore through the emerald spectre's form; once again Tyr's rifle spoke in anger against the fresh soldiers and bade them be silent.

He glanced down at where they'd propped Trance up against the wall as comfortably as possible, where he now shielded her with his own body. Kyle, using a connection that was possible through the ring, had told them that although she was unconscious, she was experiencing a great deal of pain.

He hated to see her like this. Defeated, helpless and powerless. For half a year now, she had borne power enough to destroy entire solar systems and had used it wisely, carefully. She had seemed to grow more confident, and although he believed her to be pacifistic at heart, she was willing to do whatever it truly took to succeed. Before, she had been a mystery, an unknown quantity to him, someone he barely knew. Now, if truth be told, he regarded her as a good friend, someone he could trust just as well as Beka or Rommie to hold things together without his help.

Things were _not_ going the way he'd planned.

_Come on Rommie, don't let me down._

=============================================================

Defence turrets tracked her descent the whole way down, incessantly firing ordnance that would have ripped through even her ship-self's hull inside of the first minute.

Smart munitions exploded on impact with her. Rommie ignored them completely. The ring could deal with such weapons with ease, and she couldn't afford the time needed to intercept the weapons or destroy the turrets.

A glittering beam blazed forth, brighter than the sun, effortlessly tearing into the ancient bedrock.

In a shower of sparks and rubble, she was inside.

A few Dragan troops were caught unawares, little suspecting that this narrow maintenance corridor would one day be invaded. Before they could so much as draw their weapons, she effortlessly cut them down in a shower of vermilion effectors from her force lance.

In a shower of silver droplets, she blazed her way through the walls, cutting a direct path to her objective.

=============================================================

Cuchulain imperceptibly gritted his teeth as reports came in as to the avatar's attack. He had prepared to eliminate her as she contacted the rest of her group, but it seemed she was not following such a course of action.

He swore violently into a comm unit at one of his officers, ordering the incompetent oaf to intercept her. He sighed in exasperation as he turned back to the battle at hand, deactivating the comm and drawing his sidearm as a force lance effector gouged a hole in the wall beside his head.

"Hunt?!" he roared over the noise of gunfire. "We should talk, you and I!"

"Oh? And why—" Cuchulain instinctively ducked as another effector hit the wall where his head had been a scant second earlier. "—would we need to do that?!"

Cuchulain sighed audibly as he rose, carefully placing his shots as calmly and patiently as though he were on a target range. "This doesn't have to happen, Hunt! None of it! All I want is Tyr Anasazi and what he stole from Enga's Redoubt."

=============================================================

A heavily-reinforced door rocketed from the force of a powerful kick that ripped it from its frame, and the Dragan troops on guard duty within rushed into firing positions, weapons already to their shoulders.

A slender petit human woman calmly strode through, a ring upon her hand crackling with emerald energies. A kludge!—a mere kludge dared enter the core room!

Without a second's hesitation, they opened fire on the impudent intruder.

Within a few seconds, it was all over.

=============================================================

Tyr could feel Dylan's icy stare boring into the back of his neck even as he cut down a trio of Dragan troops. Unfortunately Cuchulain, his intended target, had ducked down out of sight again a second too early.

"He's lying," he casually stated. "He doesn't just want me, he wants the ring as well."

"Well they're not gonna get it," Kyle growled even as the former mercenary dove for cover once more. "We can't afford to let them anywhere near it."

"I agree," Dylan added, tapping instructions into his wrist monitor and destroying another cruiser. "Do you have something to tell me Tyr?"

He shrugged. "At the first moment when we don't have Drago-Kazov soldiery attempting to kill us, certainly."

Dylan sighed in exasperation and relief as he saw the final pair of Dragan cruisers withdrawing with heavy damage, two of their sister vessels destroyed by fire from Andromeda. "I'm going to hold you to that."

=============================================================

Rommie stepped over the still-smoking corpse of one of the Dragan troops. Creating a simulacrum of the Tweedles had been a simplistic, but undeniably effective technique.

She grimaced briefly at a particularly unpleasant thought as she placed her hand against the data core and battered her way through the Dragans' defences with almost ridiculous ease. When Kyle had told them all that the new ring would accept her as its wielder if she wanted it, she had been hesitant.

She had not feared being corrupted by such power—although the ring was indeed more powerful than her ship-self, loaded with Nova bombs as she was, she believed she would not fall prey to such weaknesses. Her concerns had been based on an entirely different matter indeed.

_Imagination._

Of all the many qualities that she'd been created with, the ability to daydream and imagine things that simply were not true was something that had not been heavily emphasised. Kyle Rayner had been an artist with a highly active imagination—indeed, through sheer willpower he had managed to remain solid long enough to complete several pieces of artwork. And Trance, it seemed, had a highly active imagination of her own.

Did this detract from her as a living being? The thought weighed heavily on her as she grew tired of grappling with the security system, focussed her mind and destroyed it completely.

_Oh no you don't,_ she smiled within the matrix. The dying program had tried in one last desperate attempt to fool her into thinking some of the data was part of its coding, to goad her into destroying that particular file. She snorted; she was nowhere near gullible enough to fall for _that_ old trick.

She pried open the file, and beamed as she examined the contents, swiftly removing it from the core even as she scanned the rest of its interior for any links to it.

Finding none, she surfaced once more in the physical realm. Objective completed.

She now possessed all the information that the Drago-Kazov had gathered concerning the Eagle's Eyrie. She smiled triumphantly as she _flexed_ her mind—

—a glowing green battering ram pulverised the core.

She raised a slender eyebrow in curiosity as she stared at her ring whilst running through her memories of that second.

_Hmm._ Most curious.

_Perhaps,_ she mused as she flew from the core room and homed in on Trance's ring and Dylan's sub-vocal transmitter, _the trick _isn't_ to plan it. Spontaneity?_

Spontaneity she could do.

=============================================================

Cuchulain grinned as he received the transmission. It seemed that the avatar had lost her concentration at precisely the wrong time. In this case, the wrong time being when a heavy volley of gauss rounds were headed her way.

"Hunt! You _really_ should consider negotiation! You think the Kodiak is your friend—but you forget!" He paused to empty his sidearm's clip into the direction of the force lance effectors, then dropped back into the shelter of the support beam. "He's a _Nietzschean_, Hunt! First and foremost, he will _always_ be a Nietzschean! And he'll betray your trust whenever it suits him!"

"So why the _hell_ should I trust you, Cuchulain?!" the High Guard officer returned angrily.

The Fleet Marshal laughed. "You shouldn't! But if you want to leave alive, you only need to turn over the Kodiak. And I wouldn't count on your robot to save your hide either!"

Out of sight, Dylan grinned to himself. Rommie had only just contacted him, with news of the data's capture, and had explained her deception.

She had also given him an estimate of when she should arrive. An ETA that should be ended any. Second. No—

He leapt out from cover, blasting away, as the wall directly behind Cuchulain's blocking team exploded inwards, emerald beams piercing Dragan troops effortlessly.

An effector clipped Cuchulain, and the Fleet Marshal stumbled, going down with a welter of blood arcing from his shoulder.

He extended the lance as Tyr rained fiery doom into the ranks of the squad covering their other flank, turning to charge the position. An old Lancer battlecry burst forth from his lips, and fires raging in his heart he stormed their temporary emplacement. The lance's muzzle snapped back and forth spitting effectors, and he was lost in the primal song of battle.

At length, he recovered to find Rommie staring down at him in concern. Dragan corpses lay all about.

Cuchulain was gone.

"Dylan? Are you alright?"

He rose, shakily, using the force lance to aid him. "Yeah." He licked his lips as adrenaline deserted his bloodstream. "Let's get outta here."

=============================================================

Cuchulain grimaced as he found himself back in his office, and tested his newly-healed shoulder. It was not often he needed assistance like that.

He also knew that the Scipio Pride never forgot those who owed it debts.

He sighed and summoned an aide. It was time to execute the second phase.

=============================================================

Elsewhere... 

"He needs to speak with you," the youth calmly announced as he joined the beshadowed figure upon his lofty mountaintop perch.

"He has a mission for me?"

"He needs you to see him at a specific point in time."

"To what purpose?"

The younger man looked solemn. "He is near death. He needs you to know something—he wouldn't say what, at least not me or my counterpart. He said that he'd told you 'when' some time ago."

The shadow nodded sadly. "To England, then."

"To England," the youth agreed. "To war. To wrath. To the end."

A single tear slipped onto the rock beneath their feet. "To the end."

With that, they were no more. The little droplet of moisture froze in the arid climate, and in time was cleaned away with a fresh fall of snow the next day.

=============================================================

=============================================================

=============================================================


	6. A Lost Champion

**CHAPTER SIX:**

**A LOST CHAMPION**

"_History is like a vile predator—the_

_strong are absorbed into it, whilst_

_the weak are destroyed, and leave no_

_trace that they were ever there. It is_

'_unfair' as some would say. Sometimes_

_though, it can be beaten at its own_

_grisly game._"

—Telemachus Rhade of Tarazed, "_Life in Time_" CY10097.

=============================================================

Between worlds and galaxies, he drifted...

Lost...

Alone...

_Whispering began._

A faint rustle of memories...

"—_for exemplary service beyond the call of duty, I, the Ved_—_"_

**_(_**—**_his boots pounded heavily on the metal deck, and he vaulted the rail, plummeting into the amassed ranks of the Magog—)_**

_("Father? What_—_!")_

"—_promotion to Major_—_"_

**_(_**—**_Anara's lips met his in a tender kiss. A feeling, hitherto truly unknown to him yet somehow familiar, coursed through his body and he knew that he would _die_ without hesitation to protect her_**—**_)_**

"—_Sergeant_—_"_

_("It's an honour to meet you at last Lieutenant_—_")_

"_This is_—_"_

**_(_**—**_metal struck metal, ringing throughout the gymnasium as they duelled; force lance against force lance, will against will_**—**_)_**

"—_I love you._—_"_

Glittering blue eyes flashed open as the canopy slid back from the stasis unit.

"—_I love you._—_"_

He fought the instinctive urge to shiver from the cold that engulfed him.

In one single, fluidic motion, he levered himself up and out of the pod. His uniform was as it had been mere seconds—_centuries_—ago. His weapon was secure in its holster.

One by one, he stretched and tested the muscles in each limb. He worked a stiffness from his neck.

And he flexed his bone blades.

=============================================================

"_Florin will die."_

He had said that barely twenty-four hours ago, to Constantijn himself no less.

And in a minute, the despot himself would be in the palace doorway, squarely in his rifle's sights.

His first two sons would no doubt prove to be problematic to the barons; the third was but a child and a fop. But what did he care? He was an assassin, first and foremost. The more complex the intrigue, the more infighting that ensued, the better he liked it.

After all, it was good for business.

He smiled tightly to himself as the heralds announced the king's impending arrival. Soon—

—he gasped in shock, hawked and coughed blood. His hands flew from the rifle, scrabbling to reach the long-bladed knife embedded in his back, to pull it out, fight back, anything.

From behind him, he heard someone whisper something.

"Not today, little killer. This is the wrong time, the wrong place. A pity—but only for you."

Carmagnola Pertinax smiled broadly as he left the luxurious hotel, bone blades as ever carefully concealed. Florin would die—but not today.

His plans were safe from interference.

=============================================================

"Exiting slipstream in three...two...one."

"And if we've got the right system, welcome to the Eagle's Eyrie, super secret base of the High Guard," Harper grinned from beside the piloting console. Beka snorted, trying and failing to hide a smile.

"Scanning..." Andromeda announced. "Binary stars...seven gas giants, two hostile-environment planets, one asteroid belt. Thirty-nine moons scattered about... and one 'super secret base of the High Guard'," she added triumphantly. "IFF indicates it is GS00901."

Dylan could hardly believe what he was hearing, gaze unfocussed as he grinned broadly.

"Dylan?" Andromeda asked, materialising a hologram next to him.

"We found it..."

"Boss! Snap out of it. We only found the 'High Guard Holy Grail' as Mr. Will-to-Power put it."

"Yeah..." He blinked, shook himself. "Andromeda, put it on screen."

=============================================================

GS00901 had clearly seen better days.

A long spire ran through the centre of the leviathan mass of the station, much like a harpoon embedded in the flesh of a whale. But fully half the spire lay in ruins, decks exposed to the vacuum of space.

Of the eight vast primary docking slips, only five of the fortified protrusions remained. The others lay tattered and torn, shards of metal laying like scraps of torn flesh around the vast structure.

Five concentric central rings wrapped about the ruined spire, two had been badly mauled indeed. Hangars yawned open into the cold; entire sections were gouged out leaving gaping holes in their place.

But what was perhaps most impressive were the debris fields.

Nietzschean warships lay long dead in space like gutted fish. Magog swarmships were scattered in shreds of shrapnel. A semi-liquefied mass transpired to be a stray Kalderan raiding craft.

=============================================================

Space ruptured, as a glittering blue slit was sliced in reality. Flickering, the wound soon sutured shut once more.

The craft was fitted with the very finest in stealth technology. Completely undetectable apart from to the most exceptional naked eye, it slipped silently through the abyssal infinity of space as stealthily as any assassin's blade.

Its pilot smiled as she tracked her target.

Her superiors would be _very_ pleased.

=============================================================

The _Eureka Maru_ felt most tiny and cramped as Beka manoeuvred them into dock with an air lock.

Harper rubbed his hands almost gleefully as he stared at the sensor readouts of the station.

"Boss, you're _not_ gonna believe this." He gestured vaguely at the screen. "That thing's still got life support—in this section as well."

Dylan nodded as he held out a bundle to him. "I still want everyone to take EVA suits with them. No sense in taking unnecessary risks."

Harper shrugged as he took the proffered suit. "If you say so. Looks like the hull's mostly intact though—shouldn't be too hard to restore atmosphere to most of the rest of it."

"Oh-kay, we are locked in nice and snug," Beka grinned as she rose from the pilot's chair. "Where's our first stop?"

"Command centre," Dylan grunted as he struggled into a suit. "See what systems we can get operational to make this easier—and recover any records of what happened here."

Tyr snapped his helmet in place. "There shouldn't be anyone alive aboard that wreck, but I recommend extreme caution and that Trance and Rommie keep their rings ready at all times."

=============================================================

The fleet was gathered, mustered in full strength. The transmission from the scout craft had been relayed from the listening outpost, and now they knew their target's location.

Hangar bays were sealed, airlocks fastened shut.

The fleet leapt into slipstream.

=============================================================

_Intruders!_

He stared about at the various control panels, still groggy from his time in stasis.

They would not take the Eyrie. He _would_ hold until reinforcements arrived, no matter how long that took.

=============================================================

Dylan instinctively dove for cover, then clambered to his feet once more as a glittering green shield appeared, blocking the weapons fire. "Thanks Trance."

"Be back in a second," she winked, plunging head-first into the shield. The plasma flowed over her like liquid, solidifying again as she passed through it.

He turned to Beka, who shrugged through her suit even as a series of explosions echoed throughout the corridor.

"All clear!" came a cheery cry as the shield flickered before dissipating completely. "Just the internal defences."

Dylan frowned as they caught up with Trance. "How thoroughly did you, ah...?"

"Oh don't worry. I just took out a bunch of control links—it won't take long to get them operational again," she waved away his concerns.

"Expecting extra guests?" Beka raised a curious eyebrow.

"Not really, I just thought...caution would be a good idea."

"Uh, guys?" Harper's voice was a mere whisper. "I'm picking up life signs here."

He held up a scanner. "It's for real. Someone's alive on this thing."

Dylan drew his force lance. "Any ideas who? Or what?"

Harper shook his head. "Sorry boss. I got nothin'."

"Trance? Rommie?" Dylan shrugged. "Anything?"

The two masked women glanced at each other, then turned to face ahead as they swept their power rings across the corridor before them, checking screens that they generated.

"I'm sorry Dylan, but all I can find is traces of a life form, nothing more." Rommie shook her head ruefully. "The background radiation must be above typical levels in this section—it's like the ring's being jammed."

"I'm getting the same thing here," Trance admitted.

"Let's move out," Dylan quietly ordered, extending his force lance—

The decks shook and walls rumbled.

"What the hell—?" Beka paused to catch her balance as the deck shook again, and Harper was sent sprawling.

"Rommie—" Dylan began.

"I'm on it," she assured him, scanning equipment springing from her ring. "Just great. An entire Nietzschean battlegroup just entered the system and has launched a wave of boarding parties."

"Heh. And I thought we'd gotten lucky," he grumbled. "Beka, Harper, get back to the _Maru_ and return to Andromeda. Do what you can to buy us time. Rommie, get out there, give them a little grief with your ring. Trance, Tyr, you're with me—we're going to get to the command centre, see if we can find anything useful."

Beka shook her head in protest. "Dylan, with the _Maru_ gone—"

"Trance can get us back safely."

The ringbearer in question gulped, unnoticed by the others. "No pressure then," she muttered to herself.

=============================================================

The platoon sped through the labyrinthine corridors, occasionally halting to deal with fire from the internal defences. Although the layout was designed to confuse attackers, the information they'd been provided with negated this problem.

The squad's leader paused to glance at his palm screen, and noted with satisfaction that they had reached their objective.

_The station's command centre._

=============================================================

He sprang from the deck, catapulting himself straight upwards, flipping himself backwards at the apex of his leap to land on the catwalk four storeys above. Bone blades extended, he drew his weapon and settled into the shadows to wait.

He did not have to do so for long.

With a faint groan, the ancient blast doors to the command chamber opened.

This was bad news. If they were able to override the security protocols he had himself placed on the doors, they were surely more dangerous than he had believed.

If only he had the time to awaken the others, this would be so much easier.

As silhouetted figures appeared in the doorway, he took careful aim...

=============================================================

"Weapons fire," Tyr commented.

Dylan tried to focus, but was unable to hear anything. "You're sure?" The Nietzschean looked at him as though he'd asked if he liked breathing. "You're sure. Got it."

"Gauss rifles...and a High Guard force lance."

They both stared up at Trance where she flew above them. She shrugged. "I could be wrong."

=============================================================

Springing from the ladder, he ran full-pelt toward the safety rail. Much as it pained him to abandon the command centre to these intruders, he knew that alone he had no chance of defeating them. Only with the others and the contents of an entire weapons locker could they be eliminated.

"—_I just want_—_I _need_ to tell you all..._you_ are my family. My TRUE family. And those who are my kin in blood only: I renounce them wholly this day!" **Tears had crept into his eyes; he had freely acknowledged them.** "We _will_ survive. We will _never_ yield. And I will see you all again very soon."_

He blinked at the memory. He needed them, to be sure, and not only to repel the boarders.

A boot slammed against the rail's upper surface, propelling him up and out and away—

—he plummeted, rolling nimbly into a crouch and springing up as he brought his force lance to bear on the closest hostile...

He glanced up at one of the screens' readouts even as he shot the Nietzschean squarely in the chest and dove to one side. His heart caught in his chest, as he heard a great cry of rage and anguish vibrate the deck plates beneath his boots.

Vaulting from cover, he cut down four Dragans point-blank, not giving them a chance. Adjusting the force lance's controls, he flung the weapon from him as he plunged his bone blades into the next soldier's throat.

The lance exploded in the massed ranks of Nietzscheans spilling in through the doorway even as he tore his bone blades from the flesh of his now-limp victim, and he snarled savagely as he dove into the survivors of his attack.

One, an officer of sorts by his insigniae, proved to be not so easy a victim. Brown eyes stared into blue, then briefly flickered down to his gauntlets.

The Dragan gaped at him in confusion. "Why? You're one of—!"

For a single, fatal second, he dropped his guard.

Three bone blades smoothly sank into his abdomen.

"_I. AM. NOT. LIKE. YOU! I WILL NEVER BE LIKE YOU!_"

As the officer collapsed to the deck, dead, the Nietzschean roared even as he killed a pair of Dragan soldiers simultaneously.

"Hear me! I am Tarsus Augustine! Husband! Father! And I will. Not. Be. Denied. My. Life!" He grunted with the exertion, each word punctuated by the death of another Nietzschean.

He glared about himself as the last of them fell, throat collapsing with a crunch as he cast the corpse aside.

He checked the viewscreens one final time before he left.

It was impossible. But according to the internal sensors, another High Guard officer was aboard and headed right for him.

He might just get through this alive then.

=============================================================

Rommie winced as another pair of fighters headed for the _Maru_. Between defending herself and defending the cargo ship, she was sorely pressed. Still, it was more imperative to protect the _Maru_, she reasoned—she could always rely on her ring to protect her if need be.

Acting impulsively, she flung a pair of emerald harpoons at the fighters, skewering their pilots. She could have just as easily blasted them with a plasma beam, but...she felt an urge.

An urge to _create._

Blazing away almost instinctively, she wiped out another squadron of attack craft and the pair of troop transports they were protecting. A Nietzschean cruiser, closing on her ship-self, swiftly found an immense volley of missiles appearing from nowhere at point blank range and its flanks erupted in flame as they struck home, just aft of the main power core.

The fleet loomed ominously, growing closer and closer even as the _Maru_ vanished into the safety of her ship-self's hangar bay.

She smiled as a memory came, completely unbidden, to her mind. A book written thousands of years ago on Earth...

_Thank you Professor Tolkien._

She concentrated...

The emerald dragon easily matched her speed as she flew toward the fleet. Larger than even a _Siege Perilous_ destroyer, the construct drew considerable long-range missile battery fire.

"Bet you don't train to fight Green Lanterns every day," she grinned as she paused, allowing her creation to surge onwards past her. Giant claws shredded metres-thick armour like damp lavatory paper. Green flames incinerated interceptor and bomber craft by the dozen. Slaps of the great wings and tail smashed vast holes in armour with near-contemptuous ease. "Did you ever read about Smaug?"

Weapons fire from missile batteries, turrets and PDL's either splashed harmlessly against the creature or—a feat made possible due to her immense and impressive processing capabilities—slipped through holes she created, hitting nothing or other Dragan ships on the other side.

Her ship-self came about, as she shook off the last of the stinging strikes of the Dragans' first wave of attack craft and destroyed them even as they attempted to escape, and Rommie relaxed slightly.

The battle was going well.

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The stink of blood flooded the air, causing Dylan and Trance to gag. Mauled and mutilated Nietzschean corpses littered the corridors before the command centre, blocking the doors and preventing their closing.

"A Nietzschean did this," Tyr realised aloud. "These injuries...all done by a solitary Nietzschean's bone blades."

"But who?" Confusion radiated from Dylan's face as they crossed the threshold and entered the command centre. "Why would a Nietzschean be running around on the Eyrie and thinning the Drago-Kazov gene pool?"

"Identify yourself!" The challenge came from within the command centre.

"This is Captain Dylan Hunt of the Andromeda Ascendant!"

A shadowy shape dropped silently from the dimly lit upper levels, landing softly upon the deck. A mere silhouette in the low levels of light, it strode forward purposefully.

Dylan Hunt truthfully looked Death squarely in the face that day.

The muscular Nietzschean was clad in a High Guard officer's uniform, a scarlet and blood spattered jacket covering his broad frame. Jet-black hair, neatly trimmed into a short cut, framed a face that was a sculptor's dream. Piercing blue eyes stabbed out from their sockets like terrible daggers and a dataport glittered in his neck. His bone blades, slightly longer and sharper than most Nietzscheans', were fully extended and ready for battle, coated in freshly-spilled blood. A pair of gauss pistols, no doubt seized from the dead Nietzscheans, were held loosely but ready in his powerful hands.

The Nietzschean nodded, seemingly relieved as he confirmed the truth to Dylan's words. "Major Tarsus Augustine of the Argosy Special Operations Eagle Lancers Regiment."

"He's more than just a High Guard officer," Tyr growled, taking in the Nietzschean's gauntlet markings. "He's a member of the Drago-Kazov Pride."

A force lance, gauss rifle and power ring came up.

The pistols remained at the major's sides.

An obsidian eyebrow rose. "My 'family' betrayed me years before they ever considered betraying the Commonwealth. Now, they have done so once again."

Dylan kept his force lance trained on Tarsus. "How are you still alive?"

Apparently ignoring the weapons aimed at him, the Nietzschean officer nodded over to a pod on the far side of the chamber. "Stasis. About thirty of us. We moved a pod in here so that one of us could guard Command, programmed it to open if the others were in trouble or intruders got onboard. How long have I been out, anyway?"

Dylan winced as he lowered the lance. "About three hundred years."

Tarsus stared at him as he turned to leave the command centre. "The rebellion _still_ hasn't been ended?"

"Nietzschean Tactical Offensive," Tyr corrected.

The Major reached into a nearby locker, retrieving a new force lance as he stared at Tyr. "The point stands, and just who the hell is _he?_"

Dylan smiled as reassuringly as possible. "They're members of my crew. It's a long story, but for now—"

"—for now we need to stop the Eyrie from getting overrun," he agreed. "But we're going to need to have a talk later, Captain."

"I look forward to it Major."

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"Way to go Rommie!" Harper whooped, even buried as he was in the depths of a conduit. The Nietzschean fleet was withdrawing, fully half their number and more reduced to burning wrecks and clouds of debris.

"'Course, you know what this means," Beka called over to him, not taking her eyes from her piloting for an instant.

"We're gonna haveta throw one helluva party to celebrate?" he asked hopefully.

She laughed at this, dodging missile fire. "Not what I was thinking of...but not a bad idea come to think of it. No, if they escape they'll know the location of the Eyrie. If they don't already, that is."

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As they approached a junction in the corridor, the four leading Nietzscheans in the platoon literally disintegrated as a pair of gauss pistols were emptied into their bodies. Then a whirlwind crimson blur of death was among them, stabbing, punching, kicking and throttling.

Tarsus Augustine fought like a man possessed, a feeling far deeper than mere rage or hatred fuelling the fires within him. Dylan was quite unable to fully recognise it as he stepped out into the corridor-turned-killing-ground and shot down a pair of soldiers even as they drew beads on the Eagle Lancer. The Major caught his eye, nodded his thanks, then drove his bone blades through the helmet and into the skull of another Dragan soldier.

A squad in fully sealed armour appeared behind them, and fired an unusually-shaped weapon at Trance.

Strangely, the beam was not intercepted by a shield as usual. Stranger still—and something of a relief to all, especially Trance—it did her no harm.

Smiling sweetly at the squad, she extended her left hand before her, intending to restrain them. Hopefully they'd be able to find out what the weapon was supposed to have done after the battle, for it was quite surely not working—

—a little green spark leapt from her ring. She frowned, focussed her will harder—

—nothing happened.

Her ring was useless. Drained.

She ducked as Tyr exchanged a fire with the squad, gauss rounds gouging great holes in the walls, floor and ceiling.

_What had happened?_

A Dragan leapt, snarling. Tyr, pinned down, was unable to aid her.

He landed heavily, bone blades slashing through the air where her head had been barely a second before. She'd flipped herself bodily backwards, heels over head. Instinctively, Trance flung out her hands to ward off his second blow—

—his screams as the shadowy flames burned him alive echoed sickeningly within the confines of the corridor, easily drowning out the din of weapons' fire and Augustine's butchery.

She stared at her hands, then down at the rest of her body, eyes widening in shock.

Her body, wreathed in flames, flickered and danced with inner shadows.

_Just_ as the Spirit of the Abyss had.

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Cuchulain grinned privately to himself even as his commodore's transmission dissolved into static, an emerald energy beam sweeping through the flagship's bridge, cutting him off.

The operation had gone rather well, on the whole.

The Eyrie's location was confirmed. The device worked.

The loss of one of the most incompetent fleet groups in the entire Drago-Kazov navy was, when you thought about it, an inconsequential price to pay for such information.

"I believe congratulations are in order," Justinian Galeazzo smiled lightly as he emerged from the shadows.

"You could be right," Cuchulain returned the smile as he poured himself a glass of water. He didn't offer one to his guest—he used the term only in the loosest sense of the word, for Galeazzo had _not_ been invited to enter his office, nor had he even detected his entry—for the Scipion, like the rest of his Pride, would most certainly refuse it in a polite but definite fashion. He chuckled as he sipped from the glass; that Pride trusted only itself, and even then just barely. "You could be right."

Carmagnola's agent nodded toward the now-blank screen atop the desk. "Both rings vulnerable. Provided nothing goes wrong during the operation, of course."

The Fleet Marshal grimaced at the reminder of Acheron. "That is always a possibility of some sort, no matter the circumstances of the operation."

He knew better than to enquire as to Carmagnola's whereabouts; why he had not arrived for something so significant to his Pride.

"One problem, Fleet Marshal." He stared at the other Nietzschean, doubt already working its way into his mind. "Your Pride. Your senior officers, to be precise."

"Your meaning?"

Galeazzo simply shrugged, elegant features remaining carefully schooled in a blank and inanimate mask. "They regard this as a failure."

He raised an incredulous eyebrow. "A _failure?_ Well, in one sense, but—"

"My Pride does not even, _strictly speaking_, exist. That fleet's losses and the—as they already view it—_disaster_ at Acheron, no matter how impossible the circumstances, is something they regard most poorly. It will not be borne."

Cuchulain forced himself to maintain his mask of calmness, though he knew the Scipion would know the truth of his mind. "Carmagnola—"

"My Pride made no assurances to you, Fleet Marshal. Nor will we defy the decisions of another Pride's military hierarchy."

Cuchulain's concentration collapsed; he growled at the agent. "I have worked with—"

"True, you have been most useful to us. But now your usefulness is ended." The agent shrugged, his ankle-length black leather trenchcoat swaying ever so slightly with the motion. "We have nothing to discuss."

Cuchulain glared at him, bone blades standing erect as his hands folded into fists. "Get me out of here then. I can still be useful to your Pride, in other ways."

"Good bye, Fleet Marshal," Galeazzo calmly replied as he swept past.

Cuchulain's palm dagger slid easily into his gut.

Blood poured from the corners of the stricken man's mouth. Cuchulain grimaced as he applied yet further force, driving the blade deeper, twisting it up and into his lower intestinal tract. Some organ that was not typically found in a Nietzschean's anatomy ruptured—probably some addition to make the dealing of death easier.

"Well played!" The laughter of Giovanni Braccio echoed along with his applause about Cuchulain's office.

"What do you want?" Cuchulain spat, tearing the blade from the corpse and stepping back a pace as it thudded into the carpet.

The almost gaudily dressed Nietzschean appeared, quite literally, from nowhere.

Of all his Pride, he was undeniably the most skilled in stealth. Even Carmagnola acknowledged this. Cuchulain knew he had also been eying Galeazzo's position and status for almost a year now—a considerable length of time indeed among the Scipion ranks.

"Come now—what? no delight? no joy to see me? I'm almost insulted. As you wish; to business then!" he practically bounded over to a seat and flopped down into it. "I'm here to make you an offer. A _position_, to be exact. A new Pride."

Cuchulain leaned forward on the back of another empty seat, eyes glittering with interest.

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All was silent on Andromeda's observation deck as Dylan entered that night.

A lone silhouette was visible in the dimmed lights, leaning on the rail, head bowed.

He leaned against the rail beside the Nietzschean officer. He noted with not a little curiosity that he was studying something intently.

A photograph, to be exact.

A slightly younger Tarsus Augustine and a strikingly attractive young human woman with flame red tumbling tresses smiled out from the picture, resplendent in their High Guard dress uniforms—his, that of a Lancer, hers of a surgeon. Golden Double Helixes encircled their upper arms, gleaming brightly.

"They killed them." The words hung heavily in the air as Tarsus turned to face Dylan. "My friends. My... family.

"My wife and my unborn daughter. Murdered, and I was helpless to save them." He closed his eyes, denying passage to as-yet unwept tears. "They all died when their stasis pods failed. Two hundred years ago!"

When his eyes opened, two salty tears burned their sorrowful trail across his cheeks. "Of us all, whoever was guarding the command centre was the one least expected to survive." He smiled bitterly. "I..._lost_...and drew that duty."

He turned, leaning against the rail with his back to the stars. "I have awoken from my cold and bitter slumbers, Captain Hunt. Awoken to hell."

"It may be hell now. But we can change that."

At these words, a smile—true and warm—worked its path across the Nietzschean's face. "I suppose we can."

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Well, my fine readers, there you have it! Now wasn't that little lot worth waiting two weeks for? Huh? Not one, not two, but _three_ chapters, and none of 'em lightweights. Many new players added to this intricate theatre. Feedback is, as always, very much appreciated and treasured. What do you think?

Trance still has a little power left over from what she absorbed from the Spirit of the Abyss, Acheron's been knocked about a bit, but I daresay the Dragans could get it back into working order if they put their minds to the task, and Rommie's getting the hang of her imagination and power ring—becoming a little more...human ...perhaps? What do you reckon?

The Scipio Pride and Carmagnola Pertinax will most certainly be showing up from time to time—what do you guys think of them? Any ideas? Is there something that you'd like to see happen (anything except casual destruction is acceptable. If a character is to die, there should be _some_ sort of reason)? A meeting between Carmagnola and Dylan, perhaps? What if Charlemagne Bolivar should encounter Carmagnola, the man who murdered his younger brother and exterminated all trace of his genes? How does Carmagnola get on with other Nietzschean Prides from a business standpoint? If you got ideas, I'm interested in 'em.

And I could really do with some opinions on Tarsus—any ideas? Preferences? Does anyone want him clobbered off, paired up, or what? If you like him, call me. You hate his guts, call me. You think he could be written better, _call me._ Without feedback, I can't respond to your preferences 'cos I won't know 'em. Oh, and if anyone wants Tarsus paired up, I cannot stress enough the importance of specifying _WHO WITH._ This is very important. Everyone's available right now, though like I said earlier, this ain't friggin' pornography I'm writing here. If you want a love story involving Tarsus or any other character, let me know and I'll take a butchers' at what you've got. Hey, as I said earlier I like a good romance and I'm far from averse to writing one myself.

To all Trance fans; yes, I know it was a bit cruel to put her through that in Chapter Five, but I wasn't able to deploy telepaths to take over her mind (if she is even vulnerable to such an assault) partly because I don't really know of any species in the Andromeda universe that can do that except possibly hers, the Spirit of the Abyss is the only energy-draining being in the milieu and as I've already done a showdown with that bastard before a second one so soon wouldn't make for interesting reading, and it's _Kyle's_ old ring she's got so yellow isn't a weakness anymore (can any GL fan honestly say that there was _ever_ a good reason given for how the hell that one came about? Sure I haven't read many of the old GL comics—certainly nothing pre-_Crisis on Infinite Earths_—but as weaknesses go that one was _crap._ I was most relieved when it was removed with Kyle's souped-up and remodelled ring.).

Yeah, I know Prometheus once used something he called 'neural chaff' on Kyle whilst systematically taking down the JLA but there was never anything resembling an explanation for that one. And before you go ranting at how I could've come up with something new, I didn't have the time. The main point of this batch was the Eagle's Eyrie and a certain Nietzschean major, and I wanted to keep things moving. Introducing a new species would've taken time and delayed this posting even more, and I doubt anyone wanted _that_, hmm?

I can assure you the next chapter will be inside of a week from now, but I gotta write the thing first. Got a few ideas, although the next posting's gonna be nowhere near as big as this one (flexes numb fingers and just barely avoids screaming in agony from the cramp). It'll still be a good size, but not a leviathan like these three. I must say, I am _knackered_ from this. And the A-level results are out this week...! (desperately struggles to fight off heart attack).

The next chapter, without giving too much away, will be focussing a bit more on the new GL's. I know these last three chapters have wandered a bit, but trust me this is all going to turn out to have been necessary. The Eyrie and Tarsus both have secrets that will come up later, and Carmagnola will be back—just not any time too soon.

Concerning the rather more distant future: I've got a vague plan, nice and flexible to allow for readers' suggestions and various situations that might arise in the narrative, so this fanfic's going to be running for a while. Alliances, new enemies...and other aspects of DC Comics' milieu will take their effect (eventually). With regard to when these events occur (yeah, so they're a way off, but you get the point), all readers who're into DC Comics may want to bear in mind that the latest DC material I've got my hands on is _GL: New Journey, Old Path_ and _JLA: Golden Perfect_. I've heard a few rumours about Kyle almost doing a Parallax but creating a new bunch of Guardians instead and something about a new cozzy. As I haven't seen the damn thing, that's why I've stuck him with his usual uniform back from the days he was alive and kept the references to his power upgrade to a minimum.

To all readers: send in your ideas! I've got plenty of openings deliberately left for this express purpose. I'm already fiddling with half a dozen pages exploring X-Over and The Mad Dragon's ideas (yeah, the avatar idea was the original one that I ended up abandoning, but I'm having another bash at it). Come on, you got an opportunity to influence this whole thing—have a go!

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna just play back 'Pulp Fiction' which I taped off the BBC the other week. To paraphrase the good Jules, 'I should be dead, man.' Ye _gods_ I need a bloody break...still, no worries, eh?


	7. Rising Flames

Author's ramble: YEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!! Got my A-Level results yesterday, I'm through to uni! To celebrate, here's a little something for all you guys reading this. More material's on the shelf still being modified and made fit and ready for your perusal.

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**CHAPTER SEVEN:**

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**RISING FLAMES**

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_"Night has patterns that can be read _

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_less by the living than by the dead."_

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—The Book of Counted Sorrows

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She stared at her hand.

It was purple. Her skin silky smooth, unblemished.

She blinked back a tear as flames flickered into existence about her hand. She could feel a faint heat from the flames, but they did not burn her.

There she sat, curled up into a ball, staring into the flames and the shadows within them. The shadows that danced across the conduit's wall.

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"For my next trick, a Perseid from a hat in a locked room—underwater!" Harper grinned as he removed the jack from his neck and unplugged the other end from the control panel. Beka rolled her eyes as the doors slid open.

A sigh of faint amusement came from behind them. "If you'd just asked me, my clearance codes would have opened this door in two _seconds_ rather than two minutes."

Harper instinctively took a step back, his face a blank mask as Tarsus Augustine, his jacket and undershirt removed and a tight vest clinging to his oil and grease-stained torso, held out a key card to Beka. "I thought this might be of some use to you," he offered by way of explanation. "It belonged to my second in command, and we had equal security clearance levels."

She eyed him dubiously as she accepted the card. "Thanks. Weren't you and Rommie supposed to be working in the power core though?"

He smiled slightly. "She asked me to head back and pick up some equipment —well, I say _some_—" his smile broadened as he produced a flexi "—but this list's longer than the inventories of most of the black-ops missions I've been on."

Beka let loose a low whistle of surprise as she glanced over the file's contents. "I see what you mean."

"I'm definitely going to need a couple of androids and AG sleds—Nietzschean or not, there's only so much I can carry." He nodded at her as he slowly strode off. "See you later, Captain Valentine. Mr. Harper."

Beka turned to Harper, who finally relaxed as the Major vanished from sight. "You okay?"

He slowly unclenched his jaw, shook his head slightly. "Sorry boss. It's just—you know." He looked her squarely in the eyes. With anyone else, Beka might have expected this to be a sure sign of hostility or fear.

Not so with Harper. It had taken quite some time to persuade him that she wouldn't attack him or punish him for looking at her directly when speaking to her, and she knew that when he matched her gaze as he did now, he did so to show her that he trusted her completely. "I know," she gently replied.

"He—he might be High Guard. But he's still a Dragan. Still like...like _them_."

She smiled, a sad and sympathetic little smile. "By blood, sure. But from how Dylan tells it, I think he hates them as much as you do."

He snorted as they entered the weapons locker, tugging a pair of AG sleds behind them. "Oh, really?"

"Well, he didn't go into too much detail...muttered something about how they betrayed him before the revolt started."

Harper smiled weakly. "Hey, I'll work okay with him Beka, but...he just gives me the creeps."

She grinned broadly, wrapping an arm over his shoulders in a loose yet warm hug. "Don't worry about him shorty. He tries anything, I'll make him regret it. You hear that?"

He returned the hug, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her hair. "Thanks Beka," he replied, voice slightly choked.

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She didn't know for sure how many of her kind were capable of what she was about to do, or even if they believed it to be dangerous or not.

It didn't really matter. She knew what she had to do, that somehow this had to be resolved.

She glanced at her hand through half-closed eyelids and a web of lashes, pleased to see her flesh in the place of flames.

She closed her eyes fully, and was still.

She calmed herself, soothed her mind into tranquillity.

_She blinked._

__

Her surroundings were chaotic, swirling clouds of raging emotion blending with what seemed like the very fabric of time and space itself. She turned, ducking as a bolt of lightening earthed itself nearby. A tear opened briefly in the substance beside her, rippling hideously before closing over once more.

She walked onwards. She didn't know exactly where she was going. She wasn't even sure what she was doing. Only her instincts—admittedly most formidable instincts, in comparison to those of any other species—guided her.

But if there was a solution to her problem, this path would lead to it. She had _felt_ it, _knew_ that only two possible outcomes would arise from this course of action.

She would emerge, whole and herself once again.

Or she would perish. She would not allow her essence to be corrupted... defiled.

She owed it to herself, to all the people who had helped her, to remain who she was. She would live or die, but she would ever remain true to herself, to her nature.

She would ever remain, in life or in death, Trance Gemini.

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Alone in Command, Dylan Hunt stared at the viewscreen. The ruined station wallowed before him, shattered and spoiled.

"What to do," he muttered under his breath.

"Captain?"

He smiled faintly at Andromeda as she appeared on another screen. "Do we rebuild or do we dismantle what's left?" He waved a hand toward the structure. "The Eyrie's a magnificent piece of engineering, one of the greatest fortifications ever built. But now..."

"Now it's a wreck," Andromeda finished.

He nodded his agreement. "The Eyrie's dead in the water—the _Maru_ as she was before I had Harper start upgrading her could defeat it."

Andromeda raised an incredulous eyebrow. "The _Maru_'s original armament consisted of a proximity-mine launcher and a low-powered PDL system—"

"And the Eyrie has no operational weapons systems whatsoever, apart from internal defences."

"About those—my avatar informed me seven seconds ago that we now have complete control over the internal defences in all sections. They won't be using us for target practice anymore."

A grin briefly graced his features. "That is good news."

She sighed. They both knew that her visage on the screen didn't need to do so, but Andromeda found the gesture to be an effective way of conveying emotion. "If the Eyrie cannot be restored, we need to remove it and its secrets one way or another. The Drago-Kazov fleet was able to release a transmission before I...I and Rommie...destroyed them, so they will surely be amassing a force to assault the system. And they've already shown that they have a weapon that can incapacitate Trance so we are vulnerable to them."

He shrugged in defeat. "So we tear down one of the Commonwealth's greatest accomplishments and defences before they can."

"Well look on the bright side. Even damaged as the Eyrie is, that station is crammed full of things we need—ordnance, slipfighters, drones, spare parts, and there are several ships that I quite liked the look of when I analysed their specifications. We'll be putting all of it to good use, unlike the Dragans. Dylan, even in the days of the Commonwealth, less than a hundred thousand individuals knew about this station's existence. It's not as though we were launching a Nova strike on Tarn Vedra."

Dylan looked up at her, knowing she was right. "Alright," he sighed. "We dismantle the Eyrie and recover whatever material we can. Get the word out. If there are any objections, send them to me."

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Trance walked deeper still into the darkness. It enveloped her, suffocating in its totality. Every instinct screamed at her that she was in danger here, but she knew too that this path alone led to her goal.

She shivered, wrapping her tail and arms about herself, hugging herself in a futile attempt to keep warm. It was so very cold in the void, and on this level of existence physical objects had no meaning. Her life's essence, though retaining her form, was entirely unclad in this realm.

A jarring shriek echoed from behind her and she whirled about, trying to locate the source of the sound. She peered about her, scenting the air and probing time.

The darkness revealed nothing, and, she feared, hid much.

She turned back to her original path, ever warier as she walked onwards.

_There!_ A faint light flickered ahead, and she broke into a trot, then a run. For good or ill, she knew she must find its source, that there she would find her solution.

The light grew brighter, stronger as she approached—

—she halted abruptly, staggered backwards. Desperately, not taking her eyes from the being before her, she tried to crawl back the way she had come.

Blazing blood-red eyes bore into her unpityingly, and she feared her end had come.

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Claws clicked and scratched upon the deck plates, furry feet softly brushing the cold metal.

Rounding a corner and gently propelling an active AG sled, he found himself gazing into the face of the owner of the claws, a face that at first glance could have been extracted from the very worst of nightmares. But looking as closely as he did, he saw something—some_one_—very different and very welcoming indeed.

"Ah, good morning Reverend."

"Major," the Wayist politely returned, falling into step beside the Nietzschean. "I awoke early and found myself quite unable to properly meditate. In response to my enquiries, Andromeda informed me that you might be able to use some assistance."

Tarsus nodded in mild surprise and acceptance. "I'd welcome your aid. A third pair of hands in the power core will make things easier."

Rev smiled widely, teeth showing, as he leant his shoulder to propelling the sled.

"I must confess Major, I am...surprised...by you."

"Oh?"

Rev nodded. "You seem...well, astonishingly relaxed around me. I understand that you fought Magog many times in the past, and yet you have seemed to accept me with remarkable ease. Whereas others, such as Harper and even Dylan and Andromeda, took quite some time to grow..._comfortable_ with my presence."

Tarsus smiled, a deep and honest smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "If anything Reverend, you are perhaps the best piece of news I've had since my awakening in this..." he waved a hand about the general area, "...this _hell_ of a time frame. Tell me," he paused, and the little convoy halted, "are all Magog in this time...ah, _Wayists_, right?"

Rev shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid not. There are but a few thousand Magog Wayists like myself in all the—"

"_Thousands?_" The Nietzschean looked impressed. "That is surely excellent news if so many Magog can find such peace..." He stared at Rev thoughtfully. "This gives me great hope, Reverend."

The Magog chuckled. "Please, call me Rev. Everyone does. Might I ask how I give you hope, Major?"

"Without meaning to be rude Rev, Magog are by nature...well, killers." Rev nodded in agreement. "But if thousands are capable of finding peace...going completely against their nature...well, it is possible that all Magog might one day do the same. And maybe...maybe those of other species can overcome their natures."

Rev laid a clawed hand on Tarsus' shoulder. "You mean your Pride—"

A look of pain crept into Tarsus' eyes. "I renounced the Drago-Kazov Pride as being my kin in anything save by genes more than three hundred years ago. And we were at odds long before then. I am not my Pride, but..." He shrugged. "...I have hopes, Rev. Hopes that I am not alone, that others may be like myself."

He leaned heavily against the sled's handle. "If truth be told, I'm considering leaving because of them."

"Might I ask why?"

The Nietzschean smiled sadly. "I would never fit in here. Andromeda and I once met before, although she did not know me as Tarsus Augustine—I was on a classified mission, but it doesn't matter. Captain Hunt would, unless I am mistaken, welcome another High Guard officer, even a Nietzschean, even a Dragan...but he would never trust me. The mercenary, Tyr, has a just hatred for my Pride, as they were the chief instigators of the Kodiaks' massacre. Ms. Gemini I've hardly met, so I do not know her feelings.

"And Mr. Harper..." Pain bled into the Major's expression. "...Rev, he's absolutely terrified of me. I can smell his fear, almost taste it. No matter who else is with him, he cringes as though expecting me to attack him simply for being there. And Captain Valentine, quite rightly in my opinion, is very protective of him. I admire her devotion to her crew and friends...I was about to ask if you knew what it was like to have such fear directed at you, but..."

Rev smiled encouragingly. "I do. I often provoke such reactions, and truthfully it took Harper more than a year to accept me as a friend. But accept me he did, in the end. It was a long and difficult road, but he now trusts me and I trust him. At the first he was most uncomfortable with Tyr, but in the time of our greatest peril they stood by each other's side and survived the horrors of the Magog worldship together. He will overcome his fear of you, in time. Actually, it is because of the Drago-Kazov Pride that he fears strange Nietzscheans—and as you are not exactly...kindly disposed...toward the Dragans, he should come to regard you as a friend."

Tarsus' eyes narrowed. "'Because of the Drago-Kazov...' Rev, just...just what have the Dragans _done_ to leave him with such fear?"

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A/N: Sorry it's so short, but I'm already working on Chapter Eight! Be back later.

As always, if anyone's got any ideas I'd love to hear them. If you like this or hate it, tell me why and I'll see what I can do to improve.


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